"You will make me vain, Benet," says she, with a smile.
"Now," says I, when we were come to the shore, "tell me if you can see any trace of our pursuers opposite."
"No, I can see none of them—nothing moving," says she, after looking intently.
"Then we may take it they are making their way round the coast to rejoin their comrades who came in the other boat. By this time probably all the crew is on the shore, looking for water. Unless they find a spring or a stream to the west, which is little likely by the position of the hills, they will come here again to the stream yonder. But to fill their barricoes they must bring round a boat; now I can see none as far as my vision reaches—can you?"
She scanned the distance carefully, and replied that she saw nothing betwixt us and the ship.
"It is probable," says I, "that the men will content themselves with fruit for the present, but when Rodrigues learns that we have taken the boat, and that there is water in this part, he will send other boats hither. That is not likely to happen for some hours. In the mean while we must escape, and I think it will be best to do so in the boat. We are too far distant to be perceived from the ship; and even if we be, we have such a start of them as they can not hope to fetch up with us, for if we see our pursuers a mile off we may take to the woods."
"Where do you reckon to go in the boat?" asks Lady Biddy.
"Why," says I, "betwixt the chain of hills that surrounds us and those mountains we saw beyond, there should be a valley, and there should be a river to carry off the waters that flow from the mountains. If we are to find a town of Christians it should be at the mouth of that river, for there would lie the most fitting place to receive the produce brought down by the river from the interior parts of the country."
"Then you intend to make for that town?" says she, opening wide her eyes, as I deemed (not without a pang of jealousy), with delight.
"Yes," says I.