As for our horses,
a keel boat must be sent after these, and Monsieur Gratiot would no doubt
easily arrange for this. And so we found ourselves, about five o'clock
on that Saturday evening, embarked in a wide pirogue on the current,
dodging the driftwood, avoiding the eddies, and drawing near to a village
set on a low bluff on the Spanish side and gleaming white among the
trees. And as I looked, the thought came again like a twinge of pain
that Mrs. Temple and Riddle might be there, thinking themselves secure in
this spot, so removed from the world and its doings.
"How now, my man of mysterious affairs?" cried Nick, from the bottom of
the boat; "you are as puckered as a sour persimmon. Have you a treaty
with Spain in your pocket or a declaration of war? What can trouble
you?"
"Nothing, if you do not," I answered, smiling.
"Lord send we don't admire the same lady, then," said Nick. "Pierrot,"
he cried, turning to one of the boatmen, "il y a des belles demoiselles
la, n'est-ce pas?"
The man missed a stroke in his astonishment, and the boat swung
lengthwise in the swift current.
"Dame, Monsieur, il y en a," he answered.
"Where did you learn French, Nick?" I demanded.
"Mr. Mason had it hammered into me," he answered carelessly, his eyes on
the line of keel boats moored along the shore.
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