Not a moment was to be lost. Without regard to motives, measures must be taken to avert that danger, and punish the miscreants who designed it.
For some minutes Cubina remained on the spot, reflecting upon what step should be first taken.
Should he go direct to Mount Welcome and warn the Custos, by reporting to him what he had heard?
That was the first idea that presented itself to his mind; but at that hour Mr Vaughan would be abed, and he—a Maroon—might not be admitted, unless, indeed, he could show, by pleading the urgency of his errand, good cause for arousing the Custos from his slumber.
This, undoubtedly, would he have done, had he known that the scheme of the conspirators had been definitely arranged. But, as already stated, he had not heard Chakra’s concluding speech—referring to Cynthia and the bottle of strong medicine; and all the rest only pointed vaguely at some measures to be taken for frustrating the expedition to Spanish Town.
It would be time enough, thought he, to meet these measures by going to Mount Welcome in the morning. He could get there before Mr Vaughan should start upon his journey. He could go at an early hour, but one when his appearance would not give cause for any unnecessary remark.
It did not occur to him to reflect, that the time of the traveller’s departure from Mount Welcome—of which Cubina had not been apprised—might be anterior to that of his arrival there. The Maroon, thinking that the great Custos was not likely to inconvenience himself by early rising, had no apprehension of missing him by being himself too late.
With this confidence, then, he resolved to postpone his visit to Mount Welcome until some hour after daybreak; and, in the meantime, to carry out the preliminaries of a programme, referring to a very different affair, and which had been traced out the day before.
The first scene in this programme was to be a meeting with Herbert Vaughan. It had been appointed to take place between them on the following morning; and on the same spot where the two young men had first encountered one another—in the glade, under the great ceiba.
The interview was of Herbert’s own seeking, for, although neither had seen the other since the day on which the runaway had been rescued, some items of intelligence had passed between them—Quaco acting as the medium of their correspondence.