of the others will hear you."

"And old Humpy be on'y too glad to get me in a row. Well, I mean to
have it zomehow."

But Pete did not go upon any nocturnal excursion that night. Nature was
too much for him. He dropped asleep, and did not wake till the conch
shell sounded its braying note; and Nic rose once more to go to his
labour in the fields, asking himself if it was not all a dream.

The next time the settler came that way the young man made an appeal to
him for permission to send off a letter to some one in authority; but
the angry refusal he received, coupled with a stern order to go on with
his work, taught him plainly enough not to place any confidence in
obtaining his liberty through his employer, so he tried to move the
overseer the next time he came by.

Nic fared worse.

"Look here, my lad," said Saunders; "your country said you were better
out of it, and we've taken you, and mean to try and make something
decent of you. We're going to do it, too."

"But that was all a mistake, sir, as I told you," pleaded Nic.

"And this is a bigger one. Who is to believe your word? Get on with
your work, and if you worry me again with your whining I'll shorten your
rations, and keep you on the hardest jobs about the plantation."

"It's of no use, Pete," said Nic as soon as he could speak unobserved;
"there is nothing to hope for here. We must escape somehow, or else die
in trying."

"That's sense, Master Nic, all but the last part. I don't see any fun
in dying for ever so long. I'm going out to-night to find that boat,
and if I do, next thing is to zave up some prog and be off. There's one
thing to do, though, 'fore we start."

"What's that?"

"Borrow a couple o' guns and some powder and shot."

"Impossible, Pete. No; I think I could manage it."

"How, my lad? It has bothered me."

"There are two ways. Get at the guns one day when Samson is cleaning
them; or else creep to the house some hot night, risk all, and climb in
by one of the windows. I think in time I shall know whereabouts they
are kept."

"Risk getting zeen and shot?"

"We must risk something, Pete," said Nic quietly. "It is for liberty.
I should leave it to the last moment, and get them when the boat was all
ready; then, if I were heard there would be somewhere to make for, and
once afloat we should be safe. But there, we have not found out where
the boat is yet."

"And," said Pete thoughtfully, "there's zomething else we