“Wouldn’t you be if your schooner was like our brig?”
“No. Uncle and I are reckoning upon making a lot of discoveries ashore. If you are on a scientific expedition, wouldn’t that do as well for you?”
“No,” replied the French lad shortly. “We must follow out our researches by sea.”
“Then what is it you are looking for? I thought you were going to tell me the other day.”
“Yes, my father,” cried Morny, answering a hail from below. “I am coming down.”
When the two lads descended it was to find that the Count had been speaking to the skipper, who had given orders for the schooner’s boat to be lowered so that the two visitors could return at once to the brig, with the understanding that both vessels were to send up studding sails and use every possible speed now to get within touch of the shore, before making south and keeping a bright look-out for some estuary or river mouth.
“You will follow me, sir,” said the skipper; “but do you know what this coast line will be like?”
“I cannot say I do,” replied the Count. “Cliff and hill, with mountains farther in?”
“Nay, sir; all muddy shore, covered with dark green mangrove forest. I don’t suppose we shall be long before I send you up a signal; and then we can sail right in. There will be nothing to mind in the way of rocks, for where I lead it will be all mud.”
Very shortly afterwards the lads parted, and as Rodd stood looking after the boat that was bearing their two visitors to the brig, Uncle Paul came up close behind him.