“What do you zay to our going quietly down to the water some night, dropping in, and zwimming for it?”
“Into the jaws of the great alligators, Pete?”
“Didn’t think o’ that. Could hear ’em, too, as I walked along. One whacker went off from just under my feet once. I ’most fell over him, and he roared out like a bull calf. I thought he meant my legs. No, we couldn’t do that, Master Nic. We must get hold o’ that boat. I’ll have another try to-night.”
“Better not,” said Nic. “Some of the others will hear you.”
“And old Humpy be on’y too glad to get me in a row. Well, I mean to have it zomehow.”
But Pete did not go upon any nocturnal excursion that night. Nature was too much for him. He dropped asleep, and did not wake till the conch shell sounded its braying note; and Nic rose once more to go to his labour in the fields, asking himself if it was not all a dream.
The next time the settler came that way the young man made an appeal to him for permission to send off a letter to some one in authority; but the angry refusal he received, coupled with a stern order to go on with his work, taught him plainly enough not to place any confidence in obtaining his liberty through his employer, so he tried to move the overseer the next time he came by.
Nic fared worse.
“Look here, my lad,” said Saunders; “your country said you were better out of it, and we’ve taken you, and mean to try and make something decent of you. We’re going to do it, too.”
“But that was all a mistake, sir, as I told you,” pleaded Nic.