A month later Brazier and Rob were once more on board Captain Ossolo"s great orange schooner, which, deeply laden as it was, found room for the specimens collected amidst so much peril and care.
The hours and days flew swiftly now amid rest and ease, use making them pay little heed to the constant ether-like odour of the orange cargo.
Then, after checks on sandbanks and hindrances from pamperos, Buenos Ayres was touched at, then Monte Video, with its busy port.
Here there was a long halt before a pa.s.sage could be taken east, and Rob and Brazier had plenty of opportunity for studying the slaughter of cattle, salting of hides, and to visit the home of the biscacho, that troublesome burrower of the pampas and layer of traps for unwary hors.e.m.e.n.
At last the vessel by which they were to return was loaded up, and good-bye said to the worthy Italians, father and son, the former being warm in his thanks for the care taken of his boy.
"What," cried old Shaddy as he stood on the deck of the great vessel the day they were to sail, "good-bye? Not a bit of it, Mr Rob, sir! All being well, if you and Mr Brazier don"t run out to try and find a way up the gorge where the great falls rush down, I"m coming over to the old country to see you. But there, you"ll be out our way again soon."
"What did Naylor say?" asked Brazier that evening.
"That he could take us to fresh places where you would find plants more worthy of your notice than those you found."
"Ah! Yes," said Brazier thoughtfully as he watched the fading sh.o.r.e.
"I should like to go again in spite of all we suffered. As for you, Rob, I suppose you would not care to go again?"
"Not care to go again!" cried Rob; and his eyes grew dim as he half closed them and recalled to memory the great rivers, the glorious trees, and the many wonders of those untrodden lands. "I could go back now,"
he said, "and face all the fight again;" but even as the words left his lips other memories came floating through his brain, and from that hour his thoughts were directed eastward to his kindred and his native land.
THE END.