“What is it? Is anything wrong with Florence?” Collier asked, anxiously. “Not homesick, is she?”
Mrs. Collier put her hands on her husband’s shoulders and shook her head.
“Wrong? No, thank Heaven! it’s as right as right can be!” she cried. “She’s written to him to come back, but he’s never answered, and so—and now it’s all right.”
Mr. Collier gazed blankly at his wife’s upturned face. “Well, I don’t see that,” he remonstrated. “What’s the use of her being in love with him now when he can’t be found? What? Why didn’t she love him two years ago when he was where you could get at him—at her house, for instance. He was there most of his time. She would have saved a lot of trouble. However,” he added, energetically, “this makes it absolutely necessary to find that young man and bring him to his senses. We’ll search this place for the next few days, and then we’ll try the mainland again. I think I’ll offer a reward for him, and have it printed in Spanish, and paste it up in all the plazas. We might add a line in English, ‘She has changed her mind.’ That would bring him home, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t be unfeeling, Robert,” said Mrs. Collier.
Her husband raised his eyes appealingly, and addressed himself to the moon. “I ask you now,” he complained, “is that fair to a man who has spent six months on muleback trying to round up a prodigal brother-in-law?”
That same evening, after the ladies had gone below, Mr. Collier asked Sir Charles to assist him in his search for his wife’s brother, and Sir Charles heartily promised his most active co-operation. There were several Americans at work in the interior, he said, as overseers on the coffee-plantations. It was possible that the runaway might be among them. It was only that morning, Sir Charles remembered, that an American had been at work “repairing his lawn-mower,” as he considerately expressed it. He would send for him on the morrow.
But on the morrow the slave of the lawn-mower was reported on the list of prisoners as “missing,” and Corporal Mallon was grieved, but refused to consider himself responsible. Sir Charles himself had allowed the vagrant unusual freedom, and the vagrant had taken advantage of it, and probably escaped to the hills, or up the river to the logwood camp.
“Telegraph a description of him to Inspector Garrett,” Sir Charles directed, “and to the heads of all up stations. And when he returns, bring him to me.”
So great was his zeal that Sir Charles further offered to join Mr. Collier in his search among the outlying plantations; but Mr. Collier preferred to work alone. He accordingly set out at once, armed with letters to the different district inspectors, and in his absence delegated to Sir Charles the pleasant duty of caring for the wants of Miss Cameron and his wife. Sir Charles regarded the latter as deserving of all sympathy, for Mr. Collier, in his efforts to conceal the fact from the Governor that Florence Cameron was responsible, or in any way concerned, in the disappearance of the missing man, had been too mysterious. Sir Charles was convinced that the fugitive had swindled his brother-in-law and stolen his sister’s jewels.