The girl listened.

“It is a horn, is it not?” she asked, after a pause.

“Yes, I can hear it in half a dozen directions,” he said.  “That scoundrel of an Obi man is down there ahead of us, and that unearthly row he and his followers are making will rouse up all the villagers within hearing.  We will try to give him the slip.  I intend to take the path we came by for four or five miles, and then to strike off by one to the right, and hit the main road to Port au Prince, a good bit to the east of where we quitted it.  The country is all cultivated there, and we will strike down towards the bay and make our way through the fields, and if we have luck we may be able to get down to the place where the gig will be waiting for us without meeting any of them.”

“Oh, I do hope there will be no more fighting, Frank!  You may not all get off as well as you did last time.”

“We must take our chance of that, dear.  At any rate the country will be open, and we shall be able to keep in a solid body, and I have no doubt that we shall be able to beat them off.”

“Could we not go down to the shore, and get a boat somewhere, and row to the yacht?”

“Yes, we might manage that, perhaps.  That is a capital idea, Bertha.  There is a place called Nipes, twelve or fourteen miles east of our inlet.  It won’t be very much further to go, for we have been bearing eastward all the way here.  Making sure that we shall go straight for the yacht, they will gather in that direction first, and won’t think of giving the alarm so far east.  There was a path, if I remember right, that came up from that direction a quarter of a mile further on.  We will turn off by it.”

As soon as the meal was over they started again.  They found the path Frank had spoken of, and followed it down until they came among trees.  Then Dominique lighted his lantern again.

For a time the two women kept on travelling, but after five miles Bertha was compelled to stop and take off her shoes altogether.  For two miles further she refused the offers to carry her, but at last was forced to own that she could go no further.

The two litters were at once brought up, and the four sailors, Dominique and the three uninjured boatmen, lifted them and went along at a trot, George Lechmere leading the way with a lantern.  The weight of the girls, divided between four strong men, was a mere trifle, and they now made much more rapid progress than they had before, and in three quarters of an hour arrived at Nipes.

As they got to the little town, Bertha and Anna got out and walked, so as to attract as little attention as possible among the negroes in the streets.  Dominique answered all questions, stating that they were a party belonging to a ship in Marsouin Bay, that they had been on a sporting expedition over the hills, and had lost their way, and now wanted a boat to take them back.

As soon as they reached the strand half a dozen were offered to them.  Dominique chose the one that looked the fastest.  He told the boatman that the ladies were very tired, and they wanted to get back as soon as possible, and he must, therefore, engage ten men to row, as the wind was so slight as to be useless.