"You won't mind, dear, will you?" she said. "We shall probably be kept some time in England. But you will soon make friends. Robert was speaking about it last night. He said it was a good hunting country, and that we could get you some fine horses and--" and suddenly she felt Cynthia's arms about her neck, and the girl's tears upon her cheeks.
"My dear, my dear, you are too kind to me!" cried Cynthia. "I don't mind about the horses, if only you'll keep me with you."
"Of course, of course," said Mrs. Daventry. "What should we do without you ourselves."
The screw was churning up the mud of the River Plate, the flat banks dotted with low trees were slipping past the port-holes.
"Let us go out and get the steward to arrange our chairs on deck," said Mrs. Daventry. She put Cynthia's outburst down, not to any guess at the true reason of their flight, but to a young girl's moment of emotion.
The steamer put into Montevideo, and Santos, and Rio, and glided northward along the woods and white sands of Brazil. It passed one morning into the narrows of the Cape Verde Islands, and there was dressed from stem to stern with flags.
Cynthia asked the reason of the first officer, who was leaning beside her on the rail, and for answer he pointed northward to a small black ship which was coming down toward them, and handed to her his binocular.
"That's the Perhaps, bound for the South," he said; and he saw the girl's face flush red.
She put the glasses to her eyes, and gazed for a long while at the boat. The Perhaps was a full-rigged ship, with auxiliary steam, broad in the beam, with strong, rounded bows. She had the trade-wind behind her, and came lumbering down the channel with every sail set upon her yards.
"But she's so small," cried Cynthia.