An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hood violently.
``I say!'' he called.``Are you asleep up there.We'll never get home at this rate.Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?
The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around in front of it.Hope sat smiling on the box-seat.She was apparently far from sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him.
``Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday at breakfast?'' asked Langham.``MacWilliams and I are fainting.
We move that we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up and make them give us some supper.''
Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly.``Supper?'' she said.``They want supper!''
Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply.He sat snapping his whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in an inconsequent and irritating manner at nothing.
``See here! Do you know that we are lost?'' demanded Langham, indignantly, ``and starving? Have you any idea at all where you are?''
``I have not,'' said Clay, cheerfully.``All I know is that a long time ago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who escaped in an open boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing up to be shot at in a bright light.After that I woke up to the really important things of life--among which supper is not one.''
Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langham shook his head.
``Get down off that box,'' he commanded.``If you and Hope think this is merely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't.You two can sit in the carriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee to get you to some place soon.''
Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood, where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behind them.But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurely progress.The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the trees flew past them on either hand.