What of the others?
Why had he betrayed his trust?
Dom Corria de Sylva had sent him ashore in advance of any among the little band of fugitives.

Marcel and Domingo were outside the pale.

Their lives, at least, were surely forfeit when recaptured.

It was not a prayer but a curse that Hozier muttered when Marcel whispered words he did not understand, but whose obvious meaning was that now the girl must be carried to the convict's hut, since they were losing time, and time was all-important.
So they strode on, across ground that continued to rise in gentle undulations.

Even in his present frenzied mood, Hozier noticed that they were following the right bank of a rivulet, the catamaran being beached on the same side of its cove-like estuary.