Stanistreet, turning from the sea, cast his eyes about. The extraordinary thing was that the mind of the sailor was perturbed, anxious, eager for any traces of the children, whilst the mind of Lestrange seemed absolutely at peace. Stanistreet had dreaded some outbreak on landing, he had dreaded trouble should they discover traces, some instinct told him that this quietude might mean something graver than any outburst could foreshadow.
But Lestrange, despite his placidity and brightness of eye, showed no sign of alienation from the normal. Having gazed his fill, he turned and took his companion’s arm as one might take the arm of a brother. They walked towards the trees.
CHAPTER VI
HERE ONCE THEY DWELT
The wind had died to a fitful breeze that tossed the foliage to the rainy patter of the palm fronds.
Just before entering the shadow of the trees, Stanistreet paused. His quick eye had noticed something lying on the sand a little to the left. A great banana bunch half eaten by the birds, half ruined by the sun, something that must have lain there for days and got there—how?
There were no banana trees in sight, nothing but the level line of the coco-palms, like the first ranks of an army suddenly halted.
He bent to examine it. The stalk had been cut with a knife.
Straightening himself, he found that Lestrange had noticed the fact.
“Look,” said Lestrange, “it has been cut. Dick must have cut it from the tree, but there are no banana trees round here. Let us go on.” He was as much unconcerned by this, the first trace of the lost ones, as though Dick and Emmeline were alive out there, fishing in the lagoon and due to return any moment, out there on the lagoon where the blue beyond blue of the distant sea spoke at the reef break through a silence troubled only by the lamentation of the gulls.