Volume Three—Chapter Sixteen.
A Day of Conjectures.
Towards sunset a fresh inspection was made of the tracks, Jessuron going in person to examine them. The skilled herdsman was again questioned; and on this occasion a fresh fact was elicited; or rather a conjecture, which the man had not made before, since he had not noticed the circumstance on which he rested it.
It was some peculiarity in the sole of the shoe that had made the strange track, and which guided the herdsman to guess who was the owner. In scouring the forest paths in search of his cattle, he had observed that footmark before, or one very like it.
“If’t be de same, massa,” remarked he, in reply to the cross-questioning of the Jew, “den I knows who owns dat fut. It longs to that ere cappen of Maroons.”
“Cubina?”
“Ah—that’s jest the berry man.”
The Jew listened to this conjecture with marked inquietude; which was increased as another circumstance was brought to his knowledge: that Quaco the Maroon—who had been arrested along with Herbert on the day of his first appearance at the penn—had been lately seen in communication with the latter, and apparently in a clandestine manner. Blue Dick was the authority for this piece of incidental intelligence.
The penn-keeper’s suspicions had pointed to Cubina at an earlier hour of the day. These circumstances strengthened them.
It needed but another link to complete the chain of evidence, and this was found in the tobacco-pipe left in the hammock: a rather unique implement, with an iron bowl, and a stem made out of the shankbone of an ibis.