Why, then, was he delaying?
The Maroon could not make it out: unless under the disagreeable supposition that the Jew no longer slept, and was intercepting his egress.
What if Herbert might have lost his way in proceeding towards the rendezvous? The path was by no means plain, but the contrary. It was a mere cattle-track, little used by men. Besides, there were others of the same—scores of them trending in all directions, crossing and converging with this very one. The half-wild steers and colts of the penn-keeper ranged the thickets at will. Their tracks were everywhere; and it would require a person skilled in woodcraft and acquainted with the lay of the country, to follow any particular path. It was likely enough that the young Englishman had strayed.
Just then these reflections occurred to Cubina. He chided himself for not thinking of it sooner. He should have stayed by the penn—waited for Herbert to come out, and then taken the roads along with him.
“Not to think of that! Crambo! how very stupid of me!” muttered the Maroon, pacing nervously to and fro: for his impatience had long since started him up from the log.
“Like enough, he’s lost his way?
“I shall go back along the path. Perhaps I may find him. At all events, if he’s taken the right road, I must meet him.”
And as he said this, he glided rapidly across the glade, taking the back track towards the penn.
The conjecture that Herbert had strayed was perfectly correct. The young Englishman had never revisited the scene of his singular adventure, since the day that introduced him to the acquaintance of so many queer people. Not but that he had felt the inclination, amounting almost to a desire, to do so; and more than once had he been upon the eve of satisfying this inclination, but, otherwise occupied, the opportunity had not offered itself.
Not greatly proficient in forest lore—as Cubina had also rightly conjectured—especially in that of a West-Indian forest, he had strayed from the true path almost upon the instant of entering upon it; and was at that very moment wandering through the woods in search of the glade where grew the gigantic cotton-tree!