“Perhaps you already see your way clear to get out of the snarl,” I said, with a fine tinge of sarcasm in my tones.
“Ay, that I do,” he replied, giving no heed to my ill temper. “In case you two are minded to follow my instructions, it will go hard indeed if we fail of setting sail in our boat between now and sunset to-morrow.”
He spoke so confidently that I pricked up my ears at once, a new hope coming into my heart, and Leon said quietly, much as if he was safe from all harm, and we the only ones who had anything to fear from the Britishers:—
“I stand ready to do whatever you shall say.”
“Then set about finding your home, leaving us here—”
“I cannot play so cowardly a part,” he interrupted. “Anything else, and you have only to command me.”
“It was not a part of my plan that you should desert us, my bold Frenchman; but in order that we get off you must be free to act. Suppose you succeed in reaching your home before daylight, what will be more easy than to provide us with food in case we are forced to remain some time in hiding? Then, again, should our boat be seized, you could do something toward procuring another. My only hope of escaping depends upon your being at liberty to go and come.”
Now it was that I, as well as Leon, began to understand what Alec had in mind, and both of us caught eagerly at the chance, slight though it was.
“I could find my way even in the night if we stood on either shore of the point,” the French lad said, half to himself, and Oliver Perry’s brother made answer, as if it was a simple thing to walk out of the thicket:—
“Tell me in which direction you wish to go, and I will lay out the course.”