to failure.  As I faced then the probabilities, there scarcely seemed one chance in a hundred that any such scheme as I proposed would succeed.  And yet I must admit there was the one chance; and in no other action could I perceive even that much encouragement.  If Dorothy Fairfax was already in the hands of these men, then my only opportunity for serving her lay in my being close at hand.  No alternative presented itself; no other effort could be effective.  It was already too late to attempt the organization of a rescue party; there was no warship on the coast, and the authorities of the Colony possessed no vessel fitted for pursuit.  Long before daylight came, or I might hope to spread an alarm abroad, the Namur would be safely at sea.  No, the only choice left was for me either to accompany the girl, or else abandon her entirely to her captors.  I must either face the possibility of discovery and capture, which as surely meant torture and death, or otherwise play the coward, and remain impotently behind.  There was no safe course to pursue.  I believed that I could play my part among the crew, once securely established among them; that I could succeed in escaping recognition even on the part of Cochose.  If this was true, then, to a stout heart and ready hand, a way might open even aboard the bark to protect her from the final closing of the devil’s jaws.  I had nothing to risk but my life, and it had never been my nature to count odds.  I would act as the heart bade, and so I drove the temptation to falter away, and strode on up the bank into the black shadow of the trees.

I found extremely hard walking as I advanced through tangled underbrush, over unlevel ground, the night so dark in those shadows I could but barely perceive the outlines of a hand held before the eyes.  Fortunately the distance was even shorter than I had anticipated, but, when I finally emerged upon the opposite beach, it was at once quite evident that the sea beating upon the sand was decidedly heavier than higher up the Bay, the white line of breakers showing conspicuously even in the night, while their continuous roar sounded loud through the silence.  It was not until after I had advanced cautiously into the water, and then stooped low to thus gain clearer vision along the surface, that I succeeded in locating the vessel sought.  Even then the Namur appeared only as a mere shadow, without so much as a light showing aboard, yet apparently anchored in the same position as when we had swept past the previous afternoon.  The slightly brighter sky above served to reveal the tracery of bare poles, while the hull was no more than a blot in the gloom, utterly shapeless, and appearing to be much farther away than it was in reality.  Indeed, as the sky gradually darkened the entire vision vanished, as though it had been one of those strange mirages I had seen in the African deserts.  Yet I knew with certainty the ship was there, had sufficient time in which to mark its position accurately, and rejoiced at the increase of darkness to conceal my approach.  Guided by this memory I waded straight out through the lines of surf, until all excepting the head became completely submerged.  If I was to reach the bark at all, this was the one opportunity.