“Let me tell you, then, that you are setting yourself to cleanse an Augean stable. You are pitting yourself against men who have made these swampy forests, these nets of intertwining water-ways, a perfect maze of strongholds in which your little force of sailors would be involved in a desperate fight with Nature at her worst. Your officers and men here have had some slight experience of what they will have to deal with, but a mere nothing. I tell you, sir, that you have no idea of the difficulties that await you. I am speaking the plain truth. You cannot grasp what strong powers you would have to contend with. Ah, you, doctor, you should know. Tell your captain. You must have some knowledge of what Nature can do here in the way of fever.”
“Humph! Yes,” said the gentleman addressed. “You are a proof positive.”
“Yes,” said the planter sadly; “I am one of her victims, and an example of what a strong man can become whose fate has fixed him in these swampy shades.”
“I’ll trust you, sir,” said the captain suddenly. “I must warn you, though, that at the slightest suspicion you arouse of playing any treacherous trick upon me, your life will be the forfeit.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Then tell me this first; how am I to lay hands upon this overseer of yours? He is away somewhere in hiding, I suppose, on that lugger?”
“Oh no; that lugger is under the command of one of his men, a mulatto. He has gone off in a canoe, as I expect, to bring round one of his schooners.”
“What for? Not to attack us here?”
“I expect so; but I can soon tell.”
“Ah, how?” asked the captain eagerly.