“Ah, well, you will look that passage up in your Horace, and I venture to say that it will be so impressed now upon your memory that it will never slip away. There, I mentioned the flood. Flood suggests boat. You said you thought the boat might have been carried up the stream into the woods somewhere.”
“Yes,” I said; “the water did come out of the big river and rush up ours.”
“It is quite probable. You may find it as you say you did the hut. When are you going to search for it?”
“When you give me leave.”
“Go when you like. I did think I should have to go again to-morrow to the settlement to confer with the General and the others, but messages have again been sent back to the Spanish Governor of Florida, and it must be many days, perhaps weeks, before we hear again, so you can go to-morrow if you will.”
I leaped up from my seat excitedly.
“Where are you going now?”
“To tell Pomp to call me, and ask Sarah to prepare a basket of something to eat.”
He nodded and took up a book, while after telling our housekeeper of my wants, I ran across the clearing to the edge of the forest to call the boy to get ready.
As I drew near I found Hannibal seated on a stump left by the cutting down of one of the trees to make room for the new hut, with his chin resting in his hands.