"Will two months see you through?"
"It may be four, very probably longer."
"Exactly," said Desmond with a little smile. "In the meantime the Palestrina is going to Nigeria. I don't quite know where she'll go after that."
They said very little more until Ormsgill shook hands with him and calling to his carriers marched out of camp. The sun had just lifted itself above a rise to the east, and for awhile Desmond watched the line of dusky men with eyes dazzled by the fierce light, and then turned to give instructions to his seamen. They had already been busy, and in another few minutes they and the boys that had been Lamartine's had started for the coast.
It proved an arduous march, for before the sun had risen its highest it was blotted out by leaden cloud and the wide littoral was wrapped in dimness until the lightning blazed. It ceased in a few minutes, but the men crouched bewildered for another half hour ankle-deep in water while a pitiless blinding deluge thrashed them. Then they went on again dripping, and every league or so were lashed by tremendous rain while mad gusts of wind rioted across the waste in between. The next day there was scorching sunshine, and the men were worn-out, parched, and savage, when at last one of the boys who had served Lamartine, climbing a low elevation, assured his comrades that there were soldiers behind them. He said they would be, at least, an hour in reaching that spot, but there was haste and bustle when the information was conveyed to Desmond. The latter fancied it would be several hours before he made the beach.
He and the white men had occasion to remember the rest of that journey. They strained every aching muscle as they plodded on with the perspiration dripping from them and the baked mire crumbling and slipping beneath their feet while a dingy haze once more crept across the sky and the heat became intolerable. It was dark when they reached the beach, and Desmond gasped with relief when the roar of the Palestrina's whistle rang through the thunder of the surf in answer to a rifle shot. It was evident that she had steam up. He sent two men back to keep watch on the crest of the bluff, and then set about getting the boat down with the rest.
She was big and heavy. The sand was soft, and the rollers instead of running over it bedded themselves in it. The boys from the interior were also of little use at that task, and though the seamen toiled desperately it was almost beyond their accomplishing. The tide was at low ebb, and the sand grew softer as they ran her down a yard at a time, until at last they stopped gasping. Then one of the men came running from the bluff.
"The soldiers are not far away," he said.
Desmond asked him no questions, but turned to the seamen. "We have got to do it, boys," he said. "Shift that after roller under her nose."
They drew breath, and toiled on again. Their progress was not reassuring in view of the fact that the troops were close at hand, but they made a little, and in front of them the spray beyond which lay the Palestrina whirled in a filmy cloud. Every now and then there was a thunderous roar in the midst of it, and part of the beach was hidden in a tumultuous swirl of foam. Gasping, straining, slipping, but grimly silent, they toiled on, moving her a foot with every desperate effort, until at last a yeasty flood surged past them knee-deep, and hove her away from them grinding one bilge in the sand. Then Desmond raised a hoarse voice.