Peter rose abruptly from his chair and threw his cigar end out over the water. 'It's a beastly suggestion,' he said briefly. His face was white, and he found himself hoping to God that this tale of Dunbar's would not bring back to him those horrible nights he had had at the beginning of the voyage.
'Tranter was the captain of the boat,' said Dunbar, 'and Tranter was about the worst sort of coward you are likely to meet on this side of Jordan. E. W. Smith, on the other hand, never lost his head.'
The story seemed finished, and Toffy got up and stretched himself lazily, and said he was going to turn in; but Peter still sat where he was in his deck-chair.
'There might be a hundred different endings to your tale, Dunbar,' he said, 'each one as likely as the other. The boat, for instance, might have capsized, with too many men crowded into her, and have drifted ashore and been burned accidentally or otherwise by the people who found her. Or the crew and captain of the Rosana may never have taken to the boat at all, and she may have foundered with all hands (as you say the newspaper reports had it at the time); or the Rosana may be sailing in another part of the world with her villainous captain and E. W. Smith and no end of swag on board. Or both men, again, may be sleeping very peacefully at the bottom of the sea at this moment; that, after all, seems to me the most likely ending to them. Of course,' he finished, 'I don't know what grounds you may have for making another suggestion about their probable fate.'
Dunbar looked at him keenly for a moment. 'I would not have made the suggestion,' he said quietly, 'only, you see, since the wreck of the Rosana I have seen E. W. Smith or his ghost, and that is why I do not believe in the final disappearance of a man till I have set eyes upon his corpse.'
CHAPTER XII
Peter sat on a cow's skull, bleached and white, at the Estancia Las Lomas, reading a letter from Jane Erskine. He had begun to think that the Royal Mail Steam Packet Service was run for the sole purpose of carrying correspondence between himself and her, and he felt pleased with its punctuality in delivering his letters.
'It feels a bit queer being here,' he said to himself, gazing round him as he spoke. It was the evening of a hot day, and there was a flame of crimson over to westward, where a few minutes ago the sun had sunk through great bars of flame. All round him was a vast, solitary land, but nearer the estancia were pleasant homely sights and sounds. A cart yoked with five horses abreast stood by the galpon; a flock of geese walked with disdainful, important gait across the potrero; and the viscashos popped in and out of their holes with busy importance, like children keeping house. The farm horses, turned out for the night, cropped the short grass near where he stood. Peons, their day's work over, loitered in the patio, and the major-domo's children rode by, all three of them on one horse, their arms round each other's waists. The little estancia house stood, red-roofed and homelike, with green paraiso trees about it. In the veranda Toffy was stretched in a hammock, a pile of letters and newspapers from home beside him; Hopwood appeared round the corner carrying cans of water for baths; while Ross, their host, in a dress as nearly as possible resembling that of a gaucho, was that moment disappearing indoors to make the evening cocktail. He came to the door presently and shouted to the two men to come in, and pointed out to them—as he had pointed out every evening since they had arrived—his own skill in swizzling.
It was a curious coincidence that had led Peter and Christopherson to Las Lomas. When they reached Buenos Ayres a very pleasant and unexpected meeting occurred, for Peter met Chance, a man who had been with him at Eton, on his way down to the river to go home. Chance had lost his young wife a little while before, and was returning to England to see what the voyage and a change would do to cure him of an almost overwhelming grief, and his partner Ross was left behind to look after the estancia. Ross was at the hotel also, and proved an excellent fellow. And Chance suggested that Ogilvie and Christopherson should return to Las Lomas with him and see something of the life in Argentine, staying as long as they could, to keep Ross company until he himself should return.