I stood for an instant to think; and then, feeling for my pistol to see if it was there if wanted, I dashed across the plantation towards the forest, peering in every direction, but without avail; and at last, more troubled than I cared to own, I returned, dripping with perspiration, to the hacienda, to meet Tom.
“Say, Mas’r Harry, what’s the good o’ running yourself all away, like so much butter? ’Tain’t good for the constitution.”
“Have you seen any Indians lurking about to-day, Tom, anywhere near the place?”
“Not half a one, Mas’r Harry, because why? I’ve been fast asleep ever since I saw the Don off the premises.”
“Keep a good look-out, Tom,” I cried.
Then I hurried in to my uncle, who looked troubled.
“I don’t like that, Harry,” he said. “There were eavesdroppers close at hand. I thought I would go too, but I saw nothing. Not a man had been out of the yard. But there, take the gold up to your room and lock it in the big chest; the key is in it. I put it here for safety till you got back, and—confound!”
We gazed in blank astonishment, for as my uncle opened his secretary and laid bare my leather case, which he had locked and strapped up, there it was with the straps cut through, the lock cut out, and the fifteen ingots gone!