“In what?”
“Parbleu! in escaping!”
“But how?”
“That is the question. You can swim, Fabian?”
“How else should. I have escaped from the Salto de Agua?”
“True! I believe that fear confuses my brain. Well! it would not be impossible, perhaps, to dig a hole in the middle of this island, and to slip through this opening into the water. The night is so dark, that if the Indians do not see us throw ourselves into the water, we might gain a place some way off with safety. Stay, I shall try an experiment.” So saying, he detached, with some trouble, one of the trunks from the little island; and its knotty end looked not unlike a human head. This he placed carefully on the water, and soon it floated gently down the stream. The three friends followed its course anxiously; then, when it had disappeared, Bois-Rose said:
“You see, a prudent swimmer might pass in the same manner; not an Indian has noticed it.”
“That is true; but who knows that their eyes cannot distinguish a man from a piece of wood?” said Pepé. “Besides, we have with with us a man who cannot swim.”
“Whom?”
The Spaniard pointed to the wounded man; who groaned in his sleep, as though his guardian angel warned him that there was a question of abandoning him to his enemies.