They needed no telling that if dawn found them still several miles from the coast another day like that which was all too slowly ending would be the finish of them; so they agreed to the sound sense of Dan's reasoning and set to rowing with renewed determination.
When the sun at last went down they were still a long way from the promontory, yet near enough to see that the house upon it was a big building in the French Colonial style and so, presumably, the residence of a wealthy planter. With straining muscles, aching backs and rasping throats the rowers doggedly continued their pulling, but half an hour later they had to give up from sheer exhaustion. Lights had now appeared in the house; so with a single oar thrust out from the stern of the boat Dan was just able to keep her nosing at tortoise pace towards the beacon it now formed, although a slow current from the east threatened to carry them beam on past the cape while they were still a mile or more from it.
Dan could do no more, and it was Clarissa who stepped into the breach. Impelled, by the desperate need for getting Roger ashore she insisted that even the weakest of them must now play their part by double banking the men who had so far done the rowing. Then she appealed to Kilick and Monsieur Pirouet, urging that even if the one lost a lot of blood from the wound in his shoulder and the other collapsed, they should risk that for the common good in a final bid to save the whole party.
Both men willingly agreed, and while they double banked Jake and Fergusson, Jenny and Clarissa shared oars with Wilson and Dan. It proved a grim struggle, but the leeway the boat was making was promptly checked and soon it was moving slowly forward through the darkness. About nine o'clock, to their unutterable relief, it grounded on a beach no more than half a mile, west of the cape for which they had been making.
For a time they simply sat slumped over their oars, gasping, aching, and incapable even of savouring the fruits of their hard-won victory by landing on Saint-Domingue. But as soon as they had had a chance to recover a little Amanda took charge of the situation. Her wrenched arm had made, it impossible for her to help at an oar, but during the final phase she had captained the boat by taking the tiller. Now, as the others were still so done up that they hardly knew what they were doing, she called on each by name and directed them how best to lend a hand in getting the wounded ashore.
Within a quarter of an hour the operation was safely completed; then they all sank down utterly wearied-out on the sandy shore some dozen yards above the tide level. But there could be no real rest for them yet. From the jolting Roger had received he was again in great pain, Kilick had not spared himself once he had taken an oar so his shoulder was now causing him to utter half sobbing curses, Georgina had again become semi-conscious and was moaning pitifully, while Tom, whom they feared had developed brain fever, was rolling from side to side in the throes of delirium.
Although the lights of the house were no longer visible, they knew that it could not be any great distance away along the crest of the tree-covered slope that ran steeply up from the foreshore; but such was the state of weakness to which they had been reduced that they could not possibly have carried the injured up there. So, after a brief respite, it was decided that Fergusson and Dan should act as an advance party with the object of getting help.
Fortunately the trees, which they had seen only as a distant screen of green by daylight, turned out to be palms growing in a sandy soil; so their fears that they might have to fight their way through dense undergrowth proved unfounded. But some forty minutes after they had set out the main party were much concerned to hear the faint barking of several dogs, followed by the sound of shots.
Twenty minutes later Dan and the Doctor reappeared a little way along the beach, staggered towards them and flung themselves down in the last stages of fatigue. When they could get enough breath back they gasped out that about fifty yards from the house they had been set upon by three fierce mastiffs, then someone had come out and fired both barrels of a shotgun blind in their direction. The pellets, evidently aimed high to avoid harming the dogs, had rattled harmlessly through the foliage overhead, but the warning had been too dangerous to ignore, and they had been much too fully occupied in saving themselves from being savaged to attempt a parley; so there had been nothing for it but to beat an ignominious retreat.
Bitterly disappointing as was the abortive outcome of their mission, they could not be blamed for having failed to stand their ground until they could satisfy the man who had fired the gun that he had nothing to fear from them; for in their sadly weakened state it had required great fortitude to climb the hill at all. But the fact remained that the party had now no alternative other than to spend the night where it was.
At least they were lucky in the type of beach on which they had landed, as they were able to scoop out troughs in the soft sand and so lie down without discomfort; but in other ways they were very far from being at ease. With the going down of the sun they had ceased to suffer from raging thirsts, but they were still subject to intermittent cravings, during which they would have given a great deal for a cup of water, and m one or more places nearly all of them were now being tortured by that ceaseless agonizing scorching of the skin which results from severe sunburn.
Yet there was nothing the uninjured could do to alleviate the sufferings of the injured or themselves; so they settled down as well as they were able to wrestle with their miseries while the hours of darkness lasted.
At first light Dan and the Doctor, this time accompanied by Wilson and Jake, and all armed with thick staves to drive off the dogs, again started for the house. Again the others heard the distant baying of hounds but no shots followed, and somewhat over an hour after the reconnaissance party had set out it returned with a richly dressed white man and a score of cotton-clad negroes and negresses.
The leader of the newcomers was introduced by Fergusson as the Seigneur de Boucicault. He was a big fair-haired florid man aged about fifty, and the owner of the house. Bowing to the ladies he apologized profusely for the misunderstanding which had prevented him from coming to their aid the previous night, and explained that on the dogs giving the alarm he had thought an attack was about to be made upon the house by a band of marauders.
His slaves had brought down fruit, wine, a medicine chest, and hammocks in which to carry up the injured; so within a short time the worst distress of the castaways had been alleviated. Yet it was a sorry crew that made its way up to the house about an hour later. In addition to Roger and Tom all four women had to be carried, and the others had to be helped at the steeper places. Dirty, bedraggled, their hair matted, their faces peeling and puffy from insect bites, their hands blistered, their eyes feverish and sunken, they at last came to shelter and safety in the cool lofty rooms of the gracious colonial mansion.
De Boucicault made them all drink a strong infusion of Cinchona bark to ward off Yellow Jack, and Fergusson, although in a worse state than some of the other men, insisted on seeing all the injured put to bed; then he too allowed himself to be helped to undress and, like the rest, fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.
Roger slept the clock nearly twice round then lay dozing for a long while; so it was not until the following afternoon that he was urged by returning appetite to ring the handbell that had been placed beside his bed. The summons was answered by a negro houseman who in due course brought him a tray on which was a cup of bouillon, boiled chicken and fruit.