“Anything is better than this terrible suspense, Pete,” said Nic. “I did manage to bear my fate before, but the thought now of that boat lying ready to carry us down the river is too much for me, and there are moments when I feel as if I must say to you, ‘Come on; let’s run down to the river and dash in, risking everything.’”
“What! and them zee us go, Master Nic?”
“Yes; I am getting desperate with waiting.”
“Wouldn’t do, my lad. They’d chivvy us, them and the blacks and Humpy and t’others. Why, bless you, nothing old Humpy would like better.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“That’s it, zir, whether you’re ’fraid or whether you bean’t. And s’posing we got the boat, what then, zir? Them seeing us and going along by the bank shooting at us.”
“We might lie down, Pete.”
“Yes; and they’d send in half-a-dozen niggers to zwim to the boat and bring it ashore. What do you say to that, zir?”
“That I’m half-mad to propose such a thing,” replied Nic.
“Talk lower, zir. I can’t hear old Humpy; but let’s be on the lookout.”