Mr. Peter ate very sparingly, and looked sadly fishy about the eyes.
But he made no more attempts to escape just then.
[CHAPTER XI--ALL ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS]
That Benee was a good man and true we have little reason to doubt, up to the present time at all events.
Yet Dick Temple was, curiously enough, loth to believe that Mr. Peter was other than a friend. And nothing yet had been proved against him.
"Is it not natural enough," said he to Roland, "that he should funk--to put it in fine English--the terrible expedition you and I are about to embark upon? And knowing that you have commanded him to accompany us would, in my opinion, be sufficient to account for his attempt to escape and drop down the river to Pará, and so home to his own country. Roland, I repeat, we must give the man a show."
"True," said Roland, "and poor Benee is having his show. Time alone can prove who the traitor is. If it be Benee he will not return. On the contrary, he will join the savage captors of poor Peggy, and do all in his power to frustrate our schemes."
No more was said.
But the preparations were soon almost completed, and in a day or two after this, farewells being said, the brave little army began by forced marches to find its way across country and through dense forests and damp marshes, and over rocks and plains, to the Madeira river, high above its junction with the great Amazon.
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