At length, about noon, we stopped to rest; and most of our guards, after eating their meal of plantains, went to sleep. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to try and get near the captain, to learn if he thought that there was any chance of our escaping. Some few of the Maroons, with arms in their hands, sat up watching us narrowly; I therefore put on as unconcerned a manner as possible, and lay down on the ground, pretending to go to sleep likewise. I in return watched our guards, and one by one I saw sleep exerting its influence over them. Their eyes rolled round in their heads like those of owls; their heads nodded; then they looked up, trying to appear prodigiously wise; but it would not do, and at length the whole camp was asleep. I considered that now or never was my time for communicating with the captain. Though I saw that no one near was likely to observe me, I thought that some one at a distance might, and therefore that it would be necessary to be cautious. Instead of getting up and walking, I rolled myself gently over and over till I got close up to him.
“Captain,” said I, very softly—“Captain Helfrich, sir. I am here. What can I do?”
He was drowsy, and at first did not hear me; but soon rousing himself, he turned his eyes towards me, for he could not move his head. “Ah, Jack! is that you?” said he; “we are in a bad plight, lad.”
“Do you think the savages are going to kill us, sir?” said I.
“No doubt about it, Jack, if we are not rescued, or don’t manage to escape,” he answered. “I see little prospect of either event.”
“But what can I do, sir?” I asked.
“Little enough, I am afraid, lad,” he replied, in a subdued, calm tone. “But stay, if you can manage to get your hands near my teeth, I will try and bite the bands off them, and then you can loosen the lashings round my limbs. We must wait for the night before we try to escape. We should now be seen, and pursued immediately.”
I did as he bid me, and by means of his strong teeth he was soon able to free my hands from the ropes which had confined them. I also at length, with much more difficulty, so far slackened all his bands and the lashings which secured him to the litter, that he might with ease slip his limbs completely out of them. Having accomplished this important undertaking, I crawled back to the spot I had before occupied. Scarcely had I got there, when a black lifted up his head and looked around. I thought he had fixed his malignant eyes on me, and had probably been a witness of what I had done. I lay trembling, expecting every moment to have the wretch pounce upon me and bind my hands tighter than before. However, after a little, he lay down again, and grunted away as before.
Soon after this another Maroon sat up and looked round, and then another, and another; so that I was very glad I had not lost the opportunity of which I had taken advantage. In another quarter of an hour, the whole force was on the move. I looked anxiously to ascertain whether they had discovered that the captain’s bands had been loosened; but without examining him, they lifted up the litter, and bore him on as before. In consequence of this I walked on much more cheerily than I had previously done, though I still got an occasional prick to hasten my steps.
As we advanced, we got into still more hilly and wild country. All signs of cultivation had ceased, and vegetation revelled in the most extravagant profusion. Our chief difficulty was to avoid the prickly pears, and the cacti, and the noose-forming creepers, which extended across our path. We were in the advance party; the rest of the white men followed at a distance from us, so that we had no prospect of communicating with them.