“There you are, then, sir,” said the skipper, in answer to a look from the doctor, “and now we will leave you to it.”
“And I suppose,” said Uncle Paul, “that you will have no hesitation, sir, in following Captain Chubb’s advice?”
“And making for the mouth of some river,” said the Count, glancing at his son, “to get the brig ashore, so as to repair her?”
“Exactly,” said Uncle Paul. “You must see that there is nothing else that you can do.”
“Nothing else that I can do,” said the Count slowly, and Rodd gave him a wondering glance, for the skipper’s remarks about the brig’s owner being out of his mind came to his memory. “You intend to cruise about here, then, Dr Robson?”
“Here or anywhere,” was the reply. “Probably here until I seem to have exhausted the natural history specimens that I can collect.”
“Yes,” said the Count, gazing fixedly at his son, “until you have exhausted the natural history specimens that you can collect.”
He spoke in a curious dreamy way as if he were thinking hard, while Rodd coloured a little as he saw that the young Frenchman was gazing at him fixedly, for once more he could not help thinking of the skipper’s words.
“Do you know of a place that would be likely, doctor?” said the Count. “I mean a river that we could sail up into shallow water, if we were so fortunate as to reach one without sinking first.”
“Not I,” said the doctor, “but my captain here has cruised along this coast in by-gone days, and he tells me that it would be easy enough to find inlet after inlet, and deltas with streams, running up through the muddy mangrove swamps.”