Real Gold Part 53

"So do I," said Cyril dolefully.

"You? What have you got to mind?"

"What have I got to mind? All that my father will say when we get back, though I don't worry about that so much."

"What, then?"

"I've got to meet my mother."

"Well, but she won't say anything unkind to you."

"No," said Cyril sadly, "not a word; but she'll look at me as I often seem to see her looking at me now, and asking me how I could behave so cruelly to her. It half killed her, father says, for my boat was missing for a fortnight. One of the fishermen had taken it away, and she thought I had gone out in her, and was drowned."

Perry was silent, and soon after the boys had to separate, and ride in single file about the middle of the little line, Captain Norton and two of his friends forming the rearguard, in case of attack.

But though the return journey was very slow, on account of the weakness of the injured part of the little caravan, and there was every opportunity for the Indians to fall upon them had they been so disposed, they went on, day after day, unmolested, and their nights were undisturbed.

Those long narrow shelves of rock at the sides of the defiles seemed as if they would never end, but the clear crisp mountain air was wonderful in its curative effects; and while Perry was quite well again, and Cyril had about forgotten his injury, Colonel Campion and John Manning, though both thin of face, and generally a good deal pulled down, were strong enough to walk down--at the close of the last day's journey--the long slope which led to Captain Norton's house on its platform high above the sea.

"Where's Cyril?" said Perry suddenly to Captain Norton. "I haven't seen him these two hours."

Captain Norton stopped at the edge of the narrow path, and pointed down to the dry-looking garden at the back of his house, where the tall, tapering flagstaff stood up, with the British colours fluttering in the sea-breeze.

Perry shaded his eyes, and through the clear evening air he could distinctly see his companion standing by a lady, and looking up at the little mule train filing down the slope.

"Why, he has run on home!"

"Yes," said the captain. "I sent him on to meet his mother alone.

Perry, my lad, for the sake of all who hold you dear, never be guilty of such a selfish, thoughtless act as his."

"I'll try not," replied the boy thoughtfully; and then in an animated way: "But, I say, Captain Norton, if it had not been for his thoughtless act, where would we three have been now?"

The captain smiled and looked at the colonel, who had heard all that had been said.

"That's a question I would rather not try to answer, my lad. There, no more: I've promised Cyril to bury the past."

Weak as he still was from his injuries, and smarting from the bitter disappointment of his failure, Colonel Campion seized the first opportunity which occurred of getting a pa.s.sage up to Panama, the two boys parting with many promises of keeping up a correspondence, which were none too faithfully fulfilled. Perry wrote from Panama, and again from Barbadoes on the way home. Then three years elapsed before Cyril had a letter, though Captain Norton had heard again and again from his friend the colonel.

Here is a portion of the letter Cyril received:

"I don't suppose they will do it, but I think they ought to make my father F.L.S. and F.R.S. and F.G.S., and all the rest of it, besides knighting him. For only think, in spite of all the disappointment of losing the packages of seed we so carefully made up, the little lots we had in our pockets, including those you gave me at San Geronimo out of yours--I mean that day on board the packet, when you said, 'You may as well take these, for they're no use to me--' I say, all these were distributed and set, and with the exception of one lot, pretty well all grew, and they have made small plantations in Java, Ceylon, India, and one or two other places, so that in the course of time there'll be quinine in plenty in hot places all over the world. Which lot do you think it was failed? You, in your modesty, will say your own. Not it, but mine; and I'll tell you how it was--through my fall down into that horrid place. The seed was of course soaked, and it went off mouldy, I suppose. At all events, none of it grew."

"Hah!" exclaimed Captain Norton as he heard the letter read. "It was a daring thing to do--a brave soldier's deed. How many poor wretches in the future who struggle back from some deadly fever will ever hear of or bless his name? Hardly one."

"But we shall have the satisfaction, father, of knowing that we helped to save them all the same."

"Right, boy," cried the captain, bringing his hand heavily down upon his son's shoulder. "You did your share, and it would be a poor world indeed if we did all our good actions for the sake of the reward."

"But mine was not a good action, father," said Cyril gravely.

"Ah, well," said his father, "it is a matter of the past. I made you a promise then, and we will not argue that."

The End.