We decided after that to let Schillingschen lie bound, whether or not the iron wire cut his wrists.  We did not trouble to go back to inquire whether he needed drink, but let him wait for that until supper-time.  The remainder of that afternoon we spent discussing who should have the disagreeable and not too easy task of taking the professor to the lake and sending him on his way.  We sat with our backs against a rock, with the firearms beside us and a good view of all the countryside, very much puzzled as to whether to leave Coutlass behind in camp (with Brown and the whisky) or send him (with or without Brown) and one or two of us on the errand.  He was a dangerous ally in either case.

Evening fell, and the good smell of supper came along the wind to find us still undecided.  We returned to the tent thinking that perhaps something Schillingschen himself might say would help us to decide one way or the other.

“Better see if the brute wants a drink,” said Fred, and I went in ahead to offer him water.

He was gone!  Clean gone, without a trace, or a hint as to how he managed it!  I called the others, and we hunted.  The sides of the tent were pegged down tight all around.  The front, it is true, was wide open, but we had sat in full view of it and not so much as a rat could have crept out without our seeing.  There were no signs of burrowing.  He was not under the bed, or behind the boxes, or between the sides of the tent and the fly.  The only cover for more than a hundred yards was the shallow depression along which we had come to the capture of the camp, and that was the way he must have taken.  But that, too, had been practically in full view of us all the time.

We counted heads and called the roll.  Coutlass was close by.  It did not look as if he had played traitor this time.  Brown was sleeping off his headache in the shade.  Kazimoto and all the boys were accounted for.  The prisoners were safe.  No donkeys were missing—­no firearms—­and no loads.  The earth had simply opened up and swallowed Schillingschen, and that was all about it!

He had not made off with his pocket diary.  Fred had that.  There and then we packed it in an empty biscuit tin and buried it under a rock, Will and I keeping watch while Fred did the digging and covering up.  It was too likely that Schillingschen would come back in the night and try to steal it for any of us to care about keeping it on his person.

It was too late to look far and wide for him that evening.  A hunter such as he could have lain unseen in the dark with us almost stepping on him.  Gone was all appetite for supper!  We nibbled, and swore, and smoked—­locked up the whisky—­defied either Brown or Coutlass to try to break the boxes open—­and arranged to take turns on sentry-go all that night, Will, Fred, and I—­declining very pointedly offers by the other two to have their part in keeping watch.  In spite of lack of evidence we suspected Coutlass; and we knew no particular reason for having confidence in Brown.