"I can go on at once if you like," she said.
"No, dear; there is no use in hurrying. We may as well stop half an hour as a quarter. Don't you hear that?"
The girl listened.
"It is a horn, is it not?" she asked, after a pause.
"Yes, I can hear it in half a dozen directions," he said. "That scoundrel of an Obi man is down there ahead of us, and that unearthly row he and his followers are making will rouse up all the villagers within hearing. We will try to give him the slip. I intend to take the path we came by for four or five miles, and then to strike off by one to the right, and hit the main road to Port au Prince, a good bit to the east of where we quitted it. The country is all cultivated there, and we will strike down towards the bay and make our way through the fields, and if we have luck we may be able to get down to the place where the gig will be waiting for us without meeting any of them."
"Oh, I do hope there will be no more fighting, Frank! You may not all get off as well as you did last time."
"We must take our chance of that, dear. At any rate the country will be open, and we shall be able to keep in a solid body, and I have no doubt that we shall be able to beat them off."
"Could we not go down to the shore, and get a boat somewhere, and row to the yacht?"
"Yes, we might manage that, perhaps. That is a capital idea, Bertha. There is a place called Nipes, twelve or fourteen miles east of our inlet. It won't be very much further to go, for we have been bearing eastward all the way here. Making sure that we shall go straight for the yacht, they will gather in that direction first, and won't think of giving the alarm so far east. There was a path, if I remember right, that came up from that direction a quarter of a mile further on. We will turn off by it."
As soon as the meal was over they started again. They found the path Frank had spoken of, and followed it down until they came among trees. Then Dominique lighted his lantern again.