Presently the sky brightened, and as the moon shone clear above us I found that we were passing through a rough country that was but sparsely settled. I remembered to have ridden once in this direction with Lesba, but not so far; and the surroundings were therefore strange to me.
For an hour I drove steadily on, and then the girl spoke to me through the open trap in the roof of the carriage.
“A mile or so further will bring us to a fork in the road. Keep to the right,” said she.
I returned no answer, although I was burning to question her of many things. But time enough for that, I thought, when we were safely at our journey’s end. Indeed, Lesba’s mysterious actions—her quick return from Rio in the wake of the Emperor and Valcour, her secret rendezvous in the lane, which I had so suddenly surprised and interrupted, and her evident desire to save me from arrest—all this was not only contradictory to the frank nature of the girl, but to the suspicions I had formed of her betrayal of the conspiracy in co-operation with her treacherous brother.
The key to the mystery was not mine, and I could only wait until Lesba chose to speak and explain her actions.
I came to the fork in the road and turned to the right. The trail—for it had become little more than that—now skirted a heavy growth of underbrush that merged into groves of scattered, stunted trees; and these in time gradually became more compact and stalwart until a great Brazilian forest threw its black shadow over us. Noiselessly the carriage rolled over the beds of moss, which were so thick now that I could scarcely hear a sound of the horses’ hoofs, and then I discerned a short distance ahead the outlines of an old, weatherbeaten house.
Lesba had her head through the trap and spoke close to my ear.
“Stop at this place,” said she; “for here our journey ends.”
I pulled up the horses opposite the dwelling and regarded it somewhat doubtfully. It had been built a hundred yards or so from the edge of the dense forest and seemed utterly deserted. It was a large house, with walls of baked clay and a thatched roof, and its neglected appearance and dreary surroundings gave it a fearsome look as it stood lifeless and weather-stained under the rays of the moon.
“Is the place inhabited?” I asked.