At the different changes made, the rowers left their oars dripping with perspiration, for the swamp seemed breathless and the heat intense; but towards evening a faint breeze sprang up, and instead of its growing darker there was a lightening in the appearance of the place; the setting sun sent a red glow among the trees, and then they passed out of the forest into a lovely, dreamy, open country, stretching for miles and miles towards where a range of hills ran right across their course, beyond which, pale orange by the fading light, another range of greater height appeared. Soon after they passed the mouth of a clear stream, and at the end of another mile the boat was turned suddenly off to their right into a little river of the clearest water, which ran meandering through a lightly-wooded slope rising towards the hills; and as Nic was gazing at the fairy-like scene, whose atmospheric effects seemed, even in his despondent state, far more beautiful than anything he had ever seen at home, the boat swept round a curve whose banks were thickly set with trees, and once more there was a human habitation in sight, in the shape of a well-built, farm-like house upon a knoll, and the agitation amongst the dogs warned the prisoners that here was their resting-place for the night.
The next minute, as the dogs were barking, the boat was steered close inshore, and the brutes bounded over into the shallow water, to scramble up the bank, and set off as fast as they could go towards the house, from which figures could be seen issuing; and at last, as Nic scanned the signs of cultivation around, the growing crops roughly fenced, and the out-buildings, the thought struck him that this might be their destination.
While he was wondering whether this were so, the boat was run into a little creek only big enough to let it pass for about a couple of hundred yards before it grounded where a track came down to some posts; and as the boat was secured to one of these the overseer sprang ashore to meet a tall, sun-browned, grey-haired man, whose keen eyes were directed towards the bows of the boat.
“Back again, then, Saunders!” he said sharply. “Well, what sort of a lot do they seem?”
“Rough, but strong,” replied the overseer; “all but one young fellow who has been knocked about, but he seems as if he’ll soon come round.”
“Like so many horses or bullocks,” said Nic to himself bitterly, “and I am the one with broken knees.”