“Oh, if it was only daylight!” sighed Joe.
“Well, and suppose it were daylight?” said the doctor, in a singular tone.
“Nothing more simple, doctor,” said Kennedy. “I’d go down and scatter all these savage villains with powder and ball!”
“And you, Joe, what would you do?”
“I, master? why, I’d act more prudently, maybe, by telling the prisoner to make his escape in a certain direction that we’d agree upon.”
“And how would you get him to know that?”
“By means of this arrow that I caught flying the other day. I’d tie a note to it, or I’d just call out to him in a loud voice what you want him to do, because these black fellows don’t understand the language that you’d speak in!”
“Your plans are impracticable, my dear friends. The greatest difficulty would be for this poor fellow to escape at all—even admitting that he should manage to elude the vigilance of his captors. As for you, my dear Dick, with determined daring, and profiting by their alarm at our fire-arms, your project might possibly succeed; but, were it to fail, you would be lost, and we should have two persons to save instead of one. No! we must put all the chances on our side, and go to work differently.”
“But let us act at once!” said the hunter.
“Perhaps we may,” said the doctor, throwing considerable stress upon the words.