That was what Cubina conjectured, as well as just what he would have wished.
His conjecture proved correct. The mulatta, on mounting to the crest of the cliff, stopped only for a moment, to adjust upon her arm a basket she had brought up—from the half-open lid of which protruded the neck of a bottle. Then, casting her eyes forward, she struck off into the shadowy forest path, and was soon out of sight.
The moment after she had passed him, the Maroon glided silently forward to the edge of the cliff, and commenced descending the stair. Such feat was nothing to him; and in a few seconds he had reached the edge of the lagoon.
Here he paused—to make sure that the canoe had arrived at its destination, and that its late occupants had disembarked from it.
After a moment spent in this reconnoissance—looking sharply, and listening with all his ears—he became satisfied that the coast was clear; and, letting himself stealthily into the water, he swam for the opposite shore of the lagoon.
Upon only about two-thirds of the surface of the lagoon did the moonlight fall—the cliff casting its shadow upon the other third. Keeping within the boundaries of this shadow, and swimming as silently as a fish, Cubina succeeded in reaching the opposite shore, without perceiving any sign that he had been observed.
Under the heavy timber, with which the upper half of the ravine was covered, the darkness was as deep as if not a ray of moonlight came down from the sky. Only on the stream itself, and here and there through a break in the umbrageous forest, could the moonbeams reach the surface of the earth. Elsewhere, from cliff to cliff, the obscurity was complete.
Cubina conjectured, and correctly, that there was a path leading from the anchorage of the canoe; and to find this was his first purpose.
Keeping around the edge of the lagoon, he soon came upon the craft—empty, and anchored under a tree.
The moonlight, entering here from the open water, showed him the embouchure of the path, where it entered the underwood; and, without losing a moment’s time, he commenced moving along it.