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The same thought evidently struck Smellie, for he turned to me and exclaimed breathlessly: "Dona Antonia! where can she be?" And without waiting for an answer he dashed into the passage and began calling loudly: "Antonia! Antonia mia! where are you, darling! It is I Harold." Then, receiving no answer, he shouted alternately for Don Manuel and old Madre Dolores.
All the girls like their dairies very much, but Minnie Smellie got Alice Robinson's where she had hid it under the school wood pile and read it all through. She said it was no worse than reading anybody's composition, but we told her it was just like peeking through a keyhole, or listening at a window, or opening a bureau drawer.
"It would be worth all our trouble if we amid do so," responded Smellie. "But I don't half like this blind groping about in the bush; to say nothing of the tremendously hard work which it involves there is a very good chance, it seems to me, of our losing ourselves when we attempt to make our way back.
We had advanced about a mile up the creek when a deep hoarse voice was heard shouting something from the shore. "Oars!" exclaimed Smellie; and the men ceased pulling. "What was it the fellow said?" continued the second lieutenant, turning to me. "Haven't the slightest idea, but it sounded like Spanish," I replied. The hail was repeated, but we could make nothing of it.
I found Smellie on board, and all hands, including a strong gang of dockyard workmen, still busy, late as it was, putting the finishing touches to the repairs. The provisions, water, and other stores had been shipped during the day; but the boat, to replace the one destroyed, would not be ready until the next morning.
Don Manuel greeted him in Spanish with effusion, and yet with I thought; a faint suspicion of uneasiness, on our entrance, and then introduced him to Smellie and me in English, as Senor Garcia Madera.
"No, no," replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia's assistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel's roof "no, everything is all right; our cargo "
The last parting instructions having been given to Smellie by the skipper, and rounded off with a hearty hand-shake and an earnest exclamation of "I wish you success;" with a still more hearty hand-shake and a "Good-bye, Harold, old boy; good luck attend you!" from Mr Austin, the second lieutenant motioned me into the launch; followed me closely down; the word to shove off was given, and away we went punctually at half-past nine to the minute.
She says nobody can bear it, and it's wicked to shame them for what isn't their fault. Remember Minnie Smellie!"
That is to say, he was a stranger to Smellie and myself, but he was evidently a tolerably intimate acquaintance of our host and hostess. He was a tall, dark, handsome, well-built man, evidently a Spaniard, with black restless gleaming eyes, a well-knit figure, and a manner so very free-and-easy as to be almost offensive.
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