After going some distance we stopped to listen. We could hear two or three dogs barking, one replying to the other, but no human voices. This made us hope, at all events, that we were not discovered. Again we went on at a pretty quick rate, considering that five of our party had not been on their feet for several weeks. At last the men called a halt. “We had better not stop yet, lads,” said Tom Tubbs; “we must put a good many miles between us and the village before we are safe. Your skipper is not the man to let any of his crew get away without an effort to bring them back.”
A short time, however, served to restore our companion’s strength, and we once more set off as fast as our legs could carry us, breaking into a run whenever the ground was sufficiently level for the purpose. We had made good, I calculated, fully twenty miles when morning broke. It was a distance, I hoped, which would prevent the pirates from successfully pursuing us, but it would not do to rest here, for as soon as it was discovered that we had fled, Captain Roderick would be informed of it, and he would certainly tend a party after us.
“If he does, I hope that he’ll send some of his white crew, for they’ll soon get tired and give up the chase,” observed Harry.
“I am afraid, sir, he won’t trust them,” remarked Tubbs; “he’ll get a band of black fellows, who will keep on through the heat of day. I would advise that we should go forward during the cool of the morning, and try and find a place to conceal ourselves.”
To this proposal Harry and I agreed, so did our other companions, though they would have preferred resting where they were. After a short halt by the side of a stream to take some food and quench our thirst, we again pushed on, the vegetation in many places being so dense that it was not without difficulty that we could force our way through it. The worst of this was, that while we were thus delayed we should form a road for our pursuers. However, that was not to be avoided should they get upon our track.
We had made good nearly a dozen miles, I should think, when we came upon a broad river, flowing, as we supposed, into the sea.
“If we can find a canoe, or a craft of some sort, we may easily reach the coast, and save ourselves a good deal of fatigue,” observed Tubbs.
The rest of the men, who were pretty well knocked up, seemed highly pleased at the proposal. Instead of attempting to cross the stream, we proceeded down it. Harry suggested that we should form a raft if we could not find a canoe, and should a party be sent in pursuit, they would thus be puzzled to know what had become of us. I proposed that, before commencing out voyage down the stream, we should cross to the opposite bank, and there trample down the grass, and make other marks as if we had continued our course to the southward. We had not gone far when we saw a smoke ascending from amid trees on the banks of the river.
“Some native traders or white men are encamped there,” observed Tubbs. “They are probably proceeding up the river, and will tell us what sort of people we are likely to meet with on the passage down. If they are traders, they are likely to prove friendly and we may consider ourselves fortunate in falling in with them.”
“But suppose they are not traders, suppose they are not friendly, what are we to do then?” asked Harry.