The sound they had heard was the chant of a crew of black men from the heart of Africa. A part of this great carnival, they were practicing in their forty-foot dugout, a hollow log boat, for a race.
What she had said was, she supposed, pure fiction. Now her courage forsook her. They were not coming for her. They would pass a long way off. They would turn and go back before they came within hailing distance.
For once luck was with her. What she had said was true. Jeanne, having come in search of her, had found the ship gone and had seen a frantic watchman, who had left the ship “but for one short breathing spell,” racing up and down the breakwater.
At that instant the boatload of black men hove into view. Fearing treachery, Jeanne had begged them to take her in search of the missing ship.
So now here they were, out on the dark waters of night. The watchman in the prow, twenty black men from the heart of Africa at the oars, and the golden-haired Petite Jeanne urging them on and shouting with them:
“A hey, yuh! A hey, yuh! A hey, yuh!”
It was no time at all before it became plain that their destination was the misplaced ship. And at this the three yellow men vanished. Came the sound of a boat’s motor throbbing. Then that sound grew fainter and fainter in the distance.
“They are gone!” Florence breathed. “And I still have the knife!”
CHAPTER XXVII
HER BIG NIGHT
It was the crew of smiling blacks who carried Florence and Jeanne back to shore. A stout little tug came out for the Polar ship, but that was too slow for them.