There was a mysterious darkness in the depths of the woods that somehow chilled the boy to-day.
"What should he get into a rank place like that for?" said Mr. Orban bracingly.
At the same time he whipped up his horse and hurried forward. He was regretting having brought Eustace. A mangrove swamp is an unhealthy spot at the best of times, productive of a great deal of malarial fever; it would be nightfall, he reflected, before they got back, and the mist would be rising.
Away and away out into the open the pair galloped, and came to the side of the creek—the bend in the river through which the horses had to wade. The water was low just now. There were times when such floods roared over this spot that the man carrying the mails had been known to be swept away, horse and all, and was never heard of again.
At the other side the horses plunged into grass as high as their flanks—a flat, uninteresting tract of land, bare of trees except where here and there a single palm tree arose. But beyond that the ground rose suddenly from the banks of this bend of the river. On the summit of a high bank, luxuriantly surrounded by tropical foliage of all sorts, was Bob Cochrane's home.
It was a relief to Mr. Orban to find only Mr. Cochrane on the lower veranda. He was a short, broad, sandy-haired man with a rough appearance, and as kind a heart as could be found in the colony, which is saying a great deal.
"Good-evening, Cochrane," said Mr. Orban casually, as he reined in his horse. "Is Bob at home?"
Eustace listened for the answer with a thumping heart, and he saw a slight look of surprise flit across Mr. Cochrane's face as he replied slowly,—
"Bob? No. I thought he was over at your place. He hasn't turned up here to-day."
"Well, he was with us," Mr. Orban said, trying hard to keep up the careless tone, "but he started off this morning—I thought for home."