“Pull on, my brave men,” she exclaimed to herself, more than to the seamen, “every thing depends on our speed. The tide is still making out, and if we can clear the mouth of the river before the flood sets in all will be well.”
She spoke in Spanish, a language Staunton understood well. Her eye was meantime turning in every direction as her hand skilfully guided the boat.
“There are scouts about who might attempt to stop us if they suspected we were fugitives. I have, however, the pass-word, and can without difficulty mislead them if we encounter any. Your own people, too, may be in the river looking out for the schooner.”
“I think not,” answered Staunton. “We had lost one of our boats, and as I am believed dead, my successor (poor fellow, how he will be disappointed!) will, if he acts wisely, not attempt to capture the ‘Espanto’ except with the ‘Sylph’ herself.”
“The greater necessity, then, for our getting out to sea. It is already dawn. Observe the red glare bursting through the mist in the eastern sky, just through the vista of palm-trees up that long reach. We shall soon have no longer the friendly darkness to conceal us.”
As she was speaking a large canoe was seen gliding calmly up the stream, close in with the bank. The people in her hailed in the negro language, and the man who was first in the canoe promptly answered in the same.
“Ask them if they have seen the English man-of-war,” said Juanetta.
The negroes answered that she was still riding at anchor off the mouth of the river.
“We shall thus be safe if we can reach the open sea,” she observed; “but we have still some miles to row before we can get clear of the treacherous woods which surround us; and perhaps when our flight is discovered, our pursuers may take one of the other channels, and we may find our egress stopped at the very mouth of the stream. This suspense is dreadful.”
“We may yet strike a blow for you, and for our own liberty, señora,” answered Staunton. “It was fortunate the obscurity prevented the people in the canoe from discovering us.”