Leading on our prisoners, we now set out to return to where we had left the dominie.
We had, I should have said, hurriedly eaten some of the provisions Guy and Hector had cooked, and we took the remainder so that no time need be lost in proceeding to Bracewell’s.
On reaching the spot, what was our dismay to see neither the dominie nor the horses. We shouted to him, but no reply came.
“What can have become of him?” exclaimed Guy. “Those fellows must have fallen in with him, and compelled him to accompany them.”
“I do not think that is possible,” I remarked, “for they went off in a different direction. Still his disappearance is very mysterious. We must try to learn what the black thinks about the matter.”
We inquired of our guide, by signs and such words as he understood.
He examined the ground on every side and then started off at a run in a southerly direction, and on closer examination we discovered traces of the horses.
After waiting some time, as the black did not return, Guy proposed that Hector should stay by the prisoners and the two animals we had recovered, while he and I went in search of our missing friend.
Hector undertook to do as proposed.
“I’ll hobble all four of them,” he observed, “and there’ll be no risk of their getting away.”