“I suppose so,” I admitted; but with a rising temper, so that my tone contradicted him.

“It is most necessary.  We are no longer an army, or even a legation.”

“Nothing could be more evident.  You may add, sir, that we are badly scared, the both of us.  Yet I don’t stomach sailing away, at any rate, until we have discovered what has happened to the others.”  I cast a vicious glance up at the forest.

“Good Lord, child!” my father exclaimed.  “Who was suggesting it?”

“You spoke of returning to the ship.”

“To be sure I did.  She can work round to Ajaccio and repair.  She will arrive evidently from the verge of total wreck, an ordinary trader in ballast, with nothing suspicious about her.  No questions will be asked that Pomery cannot invent an answer for off-hand.  She will be allowed to repair, refit, and sail for reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements?  But where will you find reinforcements?”

“I must rely on Gervase to provide them.  Meanwhile we have work on hand.  To begin with, we must clear up this mystery, which may oblige us to camp here for some time.”

“O-oh!” said I.

“You do not suggest, I hope, that we can abandon our comrades, whatever has befallen them?”

“My dear father!” I protested.

“Tut, lad!  I never supposed it of you.  Well, it seems to me we are more likely to clear up the mystery by sitting still than by beating the woods.  Do you agree?”

“To be sure,” said I, “we may spare ourselves the trouble of searching for it.”

“I propose then, as our first move, that we step down to the ship together and pack Captain Pomery off to Ajaccio with his orders—­”

“Excuse me, sir,” I interrupted. “You shall step down to the ship, while I wait here and guard the camp.”

“My dear Prosper,” said he, “I like the spirit of that offer:  but, upon my word, I hope you won’t persist in it.  These misadventures, if I may confess it, get me on the raw, and I cannot leave you here alone without feeling damnably anxious.”

“Trust me, sir,” I answered, “I shall be at least as uncomfortable until you return.  But I have an inkling that—­whatever the secret may be, and whether we surprise it or it surprises us—­it will wait until we are separated.  Moreover, I have a theory to test.  So far, every man has disappeared outside the churchyard here and somewhere on the side of the forest.  The camp itself has been safe enough, and so have the meadow and the path down to the creek.  You will remember that Billy was roaming the meadow for mushrooms at the very time we lost Mr. Fett:  yet Billy came to no harm.  To be sure, the enemy, having thinned us down to two, may venture more boldly; but if I keep the camp here while you take the path down to the creek, and nothing happens to either, we shall be narrowing the zone of danger, so to speak.”

My father nodded.  “You will promise me not to set foot outside the camp?”