"And how did you get ashore?"
"Lashan needed a man, and there was no other, so for this one time they left me ashore to help him. It was what I had been waiting for."
"If we get through this, you will return to Africa?"
He was silent, thinking about it. "I know not," he grumbled. "I have seen much since then. Perhaps there is a better life here."
"There are slaves here, too."
"There are slaves everywhere. Many are slaves, one way or another, who do not realize they are, but I shall not be a slave. There is opportunity here even among white men."
"You are not worried about your color being a handicap?"
"Worried, no. In some ways it will work against me, and in others it will work for me. You wonder why I speak English as I do? I learned it from an Englishman who was a slave in my country. He was captured when a party came ashore from a ship. He began as the lowest of slaves, but it was discovered that he knew something of treating illnesses, although he was not a medical man. Then he became my teacher, also. Soon he was my father's adviser and confidant. When my father died, he returned to his country and returned with gold and diamonds my father had given him.
"He stood upon the shore with me before his ship sailed, and he said to me what I should remember, that any man can be a slave, and a few men, if they will it, can become kings. He put his hand upon my shoulder and told me that in the world were two kinds of people, those who wish and those who will, and the world and its goods will always belong to those who will.
" 'When I came to your land, I was a slave, but I shouldered whatever burden was given me. I looked for other burdens, and for those who will shoulder a burden there will always be many burdens to carry. Finally I helped your father, whose burdens were growning too heavy for him, and your father rewarded me, first with freedom and second with wealth.'"
Well, it seemed to me it was time to move along, so I got up. "Henry," I said, "it looks to me like you had a good teacher."
"Yes, it is so, although it took me much time to learn it. What he taught was good, but what his life showed me was even better."
The day had not yet come when we stopped in a hidden place in the midst of a thick stand of young pines. It was the side of a knoll where the ground broke steeply off, then shelved to a narrow bench. There we bedded down and were instantly asleep. This time we felt secure, and all slept, and deeply, too.
The sun was not yet up when I awoke. For a moment I lay still, listening to the forest sounds, identifying each as my ears came upon it. Rising, I went to the edge of the bench where we had slept and looked all around. A moment, and then as I started to turn, I heard the faintest clink of metal on metal.
My breath caught and held; then slowly I exhaled and looked in the direction of the sound. There not thirty yards away was a camp! And in the camp, striking flint against steel, was Vern, about to light a fire!
Chapter VIII
Very, very carefully I stepped back. When out of sight, I turned swiftly and awakened Yance. Accustomed to trouble and knowing me, he was instantly awake and alert. He moved to awaken Henry, and I went to the girls.
Gently I touched Diana's shoulder and put a finger across my lips. Her eyes flared open; there was an instant until she realized, and then she moved quietly to awaken Carrie. My gestures toward the enemy camp were enough to warn her. Swiftly, quietly we moved away through the woods, going directly away from their camp. Somehow we made it, or seemed to.
The leaves were wet with dew, or perhaps there had been a whisper of rain during the night, but there was no sound as we moved quickly along. That they would find our camp was without question, for once they started to look about for dry wood, they would undoubtedly come upon it. The first problem was distance, the second to leave no trail, yet it was distance of which I thought at first.
Max Bauer had not seemed to be with them, so perhaps the two groups had not come together. Or it might be that Bauer was too shrewd to allow himself to be found with the men who had actually been holding the girls. And it was he who worried me most, for I doubted the tracking skill of Lashan or Vern.
"If aught goes amiss," I warned Diana, "go at once to Samuel Maverick. From what you have said, he seems a good man and a solid one. Go to him, tell him all, and trust to his judgment. If he knows your father, he will get word to him."
The war party of Indians, I believed, had gone off to the north of us, raiding some other Indian people, I suspected. Bauer should be close by, but I suspected he was now behind us, as was Lashan. With luck--and mentally I crossed my fingers--we should have a clear way to Shawmut.
We moved well through the long morning, and when it came to high sun, we were upon the banks of a goodly stream, one flowing north into that great river that I assumed to be what the Indians called the Merrimack or something of the sound.
"This must be that river called the Musketaquid," Diana said. "Father came once to its shores and fished here while with other men who looked for land for the future."
The river worried me. It was a good hundred yards wide and perhaps more, and we had to cross it. Yance and I could swim, and no doubt Henry could, but I doubted the girls could, for it was not often a woman has the chance to learn, and Carrie was young.
Leaving Henry with them, Yance went downstream, and I turned up, for well we knew that Indians often conceal their canoes along the banks after traveling, hiding them against the next crossing. There were places where canoes were left for years, used by whoever came and left hidden on one side or the other.
We found no boat, it not being our lucky day, but Yance came upon several logs lying partly in and out of the water. They were of modest size, and there were others nearby.
Choosing dry logs, we found several of the proper length and bound them together with vines. The river moved with incredible slowness, and while we worked, we studied what currents we could see so as to know how best to control our crossing. Meanwhile, the girls ate huckleberries picked from bushes along the shore.
When the raft was complete, and a pitifully small thing it was, we had the two girls climb aboard, and with them we put our muskets and powder horns.
Henry came suddenly from the woods. "They come now!" he said.
"Yance?" He looked up at my question. "You and Henry. Get on with it. I'll wait a bit."
I kept one pistol with an extra charge of powder and ball laid out close to hand. And I had the bow and the arrows. They shoved off. Yance being a powerful swimmer, I knew he'd do his part, but Henry proved just as good, and the two of them, with tow lines, started swimming for the far bank, letting what little current there was help them along.
They weren't more than a dozen yards out when somebody yelled, and I heard crashing in the brush. The first one I sighted was the fat one, and he slid to a halt and lifted his musket to fire. It was no more than thirty yards, and I wasted no lead on him but put an arrow into his brisket.
His musket went off as he staggered, the ball going into the air, and he lost hold on his musket and grabbed the arrow. It was buried deep, and I saw him tugging as he fell.
Slinging my quiver to my back, I took up the pistol. There was more crashing in the brush, and somebody called a question. The fat man had fallen out of sight behind some brush, but I could hear him groaning there.
Suddenly a tall, thin man appeared in view, looking about. I lifted the pistol, but he saw me and dropped from sight. A quick glance showed me the raft was a good sixty yards into the stream and no longer a very good target, as the girls were lying flat, and you could see nothing of Yance or Henry but their heads and occasionally the flash of an arm.