At first the motion of a hammock is soothing, but though very weary Dane could not sleep. The boys marched well; but consumed with impatience, he lay wide awake peering into the darkness, and striving to encourage them to more determined effort. They ceased the carrying song from sheer lack of breath, and the white man could hear them panting beneath him. The sun rose, but there was no halt for rest; and the men were stumbling when one shouted excitedly, and not far ahead low whitewashed buildings rose dazzlingly against the sea.
When the carriers halted in front of them, two traders whom Dane recognized from Maxwell's description met him at the compound gate, and stared wonderingly when, watching them with bloodshot eyes, the newcomer told his name.
"Where are the rest of you, and Maxwell?" asked Redmond. "You can't have lost the whole of them; though there's no need to tell me something has gone wrong. Few men come home from the back country looking as though they had enjoyed the experience, but you're almost as bad as the last one."
"I have not enjoyed mine," Dane answered huskily; for he remembered with what hopes and in whose company he had first marched from the sea, and the contrast was bitter. "Maxwell has made his last journey."
Dane nodded; and Gilby laid a hand on his shoulder with a gesture of sympathy which touched him.
"He was a wonderful man--but all the rest of them are not dead, too?"
"We lost too many. The rest are following. I will try to tell you all in good time. Has Rideau arrived here lately?"
"He has; and the way he did it coupled with your own appearance would stir up any man's curiosity. Rideau came in dressed like a nigger this morning, in the hottest hurry, saying he'd important business down the coast, and offered me my own price for the loan of our big surf-boat to go there in."
"You didn't let him have it!" Dane gasped.
"We don't often let business pass us; but I told him to go to perdition, if he could find his way swimming." Gilby chuckled. "I also told him several things that needn't be repeated."
"Gilby never had any sense to spare," interjected his comrade. "He was so proud of the speech he made that instead of warning the niggers not to help him, he did nothing except tell me how he said it; and Rideau got some fishermen to take him east in their canoe. They'll be well away to leeward now. What did the brute do?"