, isn't it rather a risk for him?"

"Oh goody, no!" Nesta answered with a laugh. "Why, Eustace can ride
anything; he has ridden ever since he was six."

"Father will want to see the horse," Mrs. Orban said. "Perhaps it
has only run away from the Highlands before it was stabled. But I
can't think what it has been doing in the interval, or why Bob has
not sent over to inquire. He ought to have got home by nine at
latest."

Mr. Orban was as puzzled as every one else when he saw the horse.
He examined it carefully.

"Well, so far as I can see, Bolter has not been running away," he
said thoughtfully. "He has not been overheated, and he is as fresh
as paint. I should say he has had some quiet hours of grazing. But
where Bob is remains a mystery. I must ride over to the Highlands
at once and find out if he is there."

"O father, can I come too?" Eustace cried eagerly. "I could ride
Bolter, and I shall never be happy till I know Bob is all right."

Mr. Orban eyed the boy kindly.

"Yes, you can come," he said. "It will scare Mrs. Cochrane less
perhaps, and look more casual if I have you with me."

Away they went at a quick trot along the rough road leading to the
wood known as Palm Tree Scrub. Eustace knew every inch of the way,
and generally loved to get into the cool and shade under the
feathery palms. But to-day he glanced left and right, looking for
he knew not what with sickening anxiety.

The road, nothing but a cart-track, skirted a mangrove swamp
awhile.

"He can't have got in there," said Eustace, with a nod towards the
thickly growing stems of ti-trees rearing up from long coarse
grass.

There was a mysterious darkness in the depths of the woods that
somehow chilled the boy to-day.

"What should he get into a rank place like that for?" said Mr.
Orban bracingly.

At the same time he whipped up his horse and hurried forward. He
was regretting having brought Eustace. A mangrove swamp is an
unhealthy spot at the best of times, productive of a great deal of
malarial fever; it would be nightfall, he reflected, before they
got back, and the mist would be rising.

Away and away out into the open the pair galloped, and came to the
side of the creek--the bend in the river through which the horses
had to wade. The water was low just now. There were times when such
floods roared over this spot that the man carrying the mails had
been known to be swept away, horse and all, and was never heard of
again.

At th