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It will not be a difficult matter, for I do not believe that there is a man on board, excepting ourselves and perhaps Renouf and his brother, capable of taking care of himself." "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Dumaresq; "but it is a desperate scheme, and I do not believe that anybody but a Briton would have thought of it, much less talked of it so coolly as you have done.
And Pierre Dumaresq, lowering the ladder, laughed to himself a low, fierce laugh, without words. The next instant there came a rush of feet upon the balcony above them and a torrent of angry shouting. Stephanie shrank against a pillar, but in a moment Pierre's arm encircled her, impelling her irresistibly, and they fled across the terrace through the darkness. The man was still laughing as he ran.
The ground on which those theories were built, has been travelled over, and has not been found to realise them, but subsequent investigation has discovered to us a river, the dip of whose bed is to the S.W. We have every reason to believe that the sources of this river must be far to the northward of the most distant northerly point to which any survey has been made, as we are certain that it is far beyond the stretch of vision from the loftiest and most westerly of the barrier ranges; from which circumstance, it is evident that whatever disposition the streams descending from those ranges to the westward may show to hold a N.W. course more immediately at the base, the whole of the interior streams, from the Macquarie to the Dumaresq, are tributaries to the principal channel which conveys their united waters at right angles, if not still more opposite to the direction they were supposed to take, as far as is yet known.
Did as the skipper had requested, receiving young Dumaresq into the gig in his place, and then the several boats lay upon their oars, awaiting further orders.
Dumaresq, who had remained with me thus far, thought this a good opportunity to rejoin his countrymen, and, with my cordial permission, took a passage in the felucca.
The happy moment is at length arrived when I can despatch a letter from Spithead. Yours of yesterday is in my hand. To-morrow you will be setting off; but I fear the service will prevent our meeting till the day after. "I have despatched Dumaresq to Newport for our dear boy; and I depend on seeing him to-night. Le Duc est empressé de le voir.
All, that is to say, except Dumaresq, who recognised as clearly as I did the vital necessity for us to push onward as speedily as possible; after discussing the situation for a while, therefore, we threw over a couple of oars, and, placing the boat compass between my feet where I could see it, paddled wearily and painfully onward until noon, when we ceased, that I might have an opportunity to take an observation for the determination of our latitude.
He uttered a brief laugh that sounded savage. "That was yesterday," he told her grimly. "I have forfeited my popularity since then." A slow, painful flush rose in Stephanie's drawn face, but she shrank no longer from his look. "And you have gained nothing in exchange," she said, her voice very low. "Except what I desired to gain," said Pierre Dumaresq.
His place was immediately taken by another; but within a quarter of an hour this man, too, was obliged to give up; and so, one after the other, they all succumbed, until only Dumaresq and myself were left; and we had not been tugging at the oars five minutes when the Frenchman cried: "It is no good, mon ami; I am `gastados', as the Spaniards say; I am expended, worn out!"
There has been no hint of violence thus far; but, mark my words, Bowen, unless we are rescued within the next forty-eight hours this boat will become the scene of a ghastly tragedy. Ah! mon Dieu! look at that!" Dumaresq had brought his lips close to my ear while speaking, and the accompanying turn of his head had permitted his eyes to glance over my shoulder into the water astern of the boat.
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