“Better be careful, my lad. I would not overheat myself. After all this flooding there may be fever in the air. But there, you will take care of yourself.”
“Yes, Morgan,” I said, “I’ll try. Seen Pomp anywhere?”
“No; not since breakfast. A lazy young dog. Make his father do all the work. What’s that, sir?”
We both looked sharply round toward the forest, for there was the faint rustle of something moving, but the sound ceased as he spoke.
“Only a squirrel,” I said, at a guess. “I think I shall go and have a bathe.”
“Where?” said Morgan; “not in the river; the stream is too swift, sir, yet.”
“No; in our big pool.”
“Better take a pole and prod about well first. After all this water there may be a young alligator or two crept in.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of them,” I said, laughing; and I listened again, for there was another faint rustle among the leaves, but it ceased, and I stood watching as Morgan tied up two or three of the great succulent vine-shoots which were trailing over one of the trees, luxuriating in the glowing sunshine, and showing goodly-sized bunches of grapes, such as would in another two months be so many little amber bags of luscious sweetness.
“Yes, I haven’t had a swim since the flood,” I thought to myself, as I went on, leaped over the rough, moss-grown fence, and was soon after making my way along past the edge of the sugar-cane plantation, where the weeds were growing like mad, and then through the great, tall-leaved rows of tobacco in the new clearing, where the stumps of the trees so laboriously cut down still stood.