way."

"But you didn't see them go back, uncle?"

"Yes, I did, sir, and I remember thinking how cat-like they were in
their actions, pouncing upon the food and eating it there and then. I
watched them till they had done, so as to see them steal off again with
their boat, and I meant to write a note about it in my paper regarding
this trip."

"Well, they are not waiting this morning, uncle," said the boy
meaningly.

"No," said the doctor, glancing in the direction of the wild banana
leaf.

"Well, uncle, what do you make of that?"

"I don't know, my lad. What do you make of it?"

"I don't quite know, uncle. They are savages."

"Yes, boy, they are savages."

"And they've got spears, uncle," said the boy meaningly.

"There you go again, sir!" cried Uncle Paul, irascibly now. "You know
perfectly well, Rodney, how this sort of thing annoys me. I suppose the
next thing you will be telling me is that one of them came with his
spear and behaved as one of Captain Cook's friends says the Australian
blacks behaved to the girls they wanted to steal for their wives."

"No, I don't, uncle," cried the boy ill-humouredly. "I don't know what
Captain Cook's friends say. I hardly know who Captain Cook is--Yes, I
do: he's the man who sailed round the world."

"Well, then, I'll tell you, sir. He said the blacks come in the dark,
twist their spears in the girls' hair, and carry them away. And I
suppose you mean to infer that that's what has become of the Spanish
captain?"

"I don't, uncle," cried Rodd.

"But if you do, sir, you are wrong; for the Don, as you two lads
nicknamed him, had hardly a bit of hair on his head. There, there,
there; being cross won't make any better of it. Hope to goodness that
nothing has happened to the poor fellow. Can't have got up in the night
and walked away in his sleep, can he?"

"Well, but if he had, uncle, he must have woke up by this time, and then
he'd walk back again."

"Well, we can't go without him, my dear lads. He has been a very
faithful servant to us, and it would be a mean, cowardly, despicable act
for us to leave him in the lurch. Oh, it's impossible. It would be
little better than murder to leave a man here without a boat."

Rodd looked hard at Morny, as if questioning him with his eyes; and so
the French lad took it to be, for he made a deprecating gesture with his
hands.

The doctor was watching his nephew keenly, and now clapped him sharply
on the shoulde