"You may be right, John—and look here! There's a Dutch post somewhere up the Bulungan——"
"Two," said the quartermaster. "Plenty big river, topside."
Barnes looked at the recumbent figure of Ellen Maggs in the boat, looked at the three children playing in the sand. In the warm, clear light of the sunset, the perplexed frown of his face was plain to be seen. He looked anxious, yet his blue eyes were stormy and filled with a passionate anger as though he were rebelling against something that he saw was unavoidable. He came to his feet and paused.
"Dutch posts?" cried Nora Sayers eagerly. "Then we can row up the river!"
Barnes looked at her, and under the regard of his eyes she fell silent.
"Yes, you can," he said. "Sure. And so can those devils, unless there's something right here to stop 'em! Besides, it's a long chance. We don't know for sure that it's the Bulungan River, or one of the mouths. That's the devil of destiny; it never gives a man a fair show for his white alley! The cards are stacked every time."
He glanced at the sky. There was yet half an hour of daylight, for the sun was down behind the western mountains of Borneo, and the afterglow would linger for a while.
"You mean," questioned the girl, "that they can row so much faster than we can?"
"Exactly. A dozen oars to our two. The Dutch posts, if they're here, are probably miles up-river. They are trading posts, you know, in touch with the natives. We might hide somewhere along the river, only to die slowly. Lim Tock will search every inch of the stream, you may be sure. His own life depends on it."
"If we could get a messenger up the river——"