Hunting the Skipper Part 74

"Well, Mr Murray," he cried, "what does this mean? Why have you got the planter's boat and crew out here?"

"We found them, sir, by accident," faltered the lad.

"Well, I suppose they did not want much finding. Where is your prisoner?"

Murray gazed at his officer vacantly, trying hard to reply, but, as he afterwards said to Roberts, if it had been to save his life he could not have uttered a word.

"What's the matter, my lad?" said the chief officer kindly. "Not ill, are you?"

"No, sir," replied Murray, finding his voice at last, and watching the lieutenant hard, followed by d.i.c.k Roberts, who was grinning as if he enjoyed hearing what he looked upon as the beginning of "a wigging."

"Then why don't you speak? I said where is your prisoner?"

"I--I don't know, sir," was the extremely feeble reply.

"Wha-a-a-t!" shouted the lieutenant. "I don't know, sir," cried Murray, desperately now. "He's gone."

"Gone? My good sir," cried the lieutenant, "you were sent here in charge of him for some cryptic idea of the captain, and you tell me he's gone? You don't mean to tell me that you've let him escape!"

"I didn't let him escape, sir," faltered the lad, glancing at his brother middy and reading in his countenance, rightly or wrongly, that Roberts was triumphing over the trouble he was in--"I didn't let him escape, sir," cried Murray desperately, "for I was being as watchful as possible; but he was very ill and weak and said that he wanted to lie down in one of the rooms there. Tom May will tell you the same, sir."

"I dare say he will, sir, when I ask him," said the lieutenant sternly.

"Now I am asking you the meaning of this lapse of duty."

"I did keep watch over him, sir, and posted my men all round the cottage; but when I came to see how he was getting on--"

"Getting on, sir! Getting off, you mean."

"No, sir; I did not see him go off, sir," faltered Murray.

"Don't you try to bandy words with me, sir," cried the lieutenant, beginning to fulminate with rage. "There, speak out plainly. You mean to tell me that when you came to look for your prisoner--for that is what he is--he was gone?"

"Yes, sir; that is right," said the lad sadly.

"That is wrong, Mr Murray. Gone! And you stand here doing nothing!

Confound it all, man, why are you not searching for him?"

"I have been searching for him, sir."

"But you are here, my good sir, and have not found him."

"No, sir, but I have done everything possible."

"Except find him, sir. This comes of setting a boy like you to take charge of the prisoner. Well, it was the captain's choice, not mine.

I'll be bound to say that if Mr Roberts had been sent upon this duty he would have had a very different tale to tell."

Murray shivered in his misery, and tried to master the desire to glance at his brother middy, but failed, and saw that Roberts was beginning to swell with importance.

"Well, Mr Murray," continued the lieutenant, after pausing for a few moments, after giving his subordinate this unkindly stab and, so to speak, beginning to wriggle his verbal weapon in the wound, "it is you who have to meet the captain when you go back after being relieved, not I. That I am thankful to say. But I fail to see, Mr Roberts, what is the good of setting you on duty with a fresh set of men to guard the prisoner, when there is no prisoner to guard. Here, show me where you bestowed the scoundrel."

Murray led the way into the cottage, with his heart beating heavily with misery; the lieutenant followed him in silence; and Roberts came last, glancing at Murray the while and with his lips moving in silence as if he were saying, "I say, you've done it now!"

"Absurd!" cried the lieutenant, a few minutes later, and after looking through the room where the planter had lain down. "You might have been sure that the prisoner would escape. Then you did nothing to guard him?"

"Yes, I did, sir," cried the lad desperately. "I posted men all round the cottage."

"And a deal of good that was! Anything else?"

"I have been examining the place all about, sir, with Tom May and the two boat-keepers."

"Well, and what was the result?"

"Only that I found one of the hiding-places of this maze of a place, sir."

"With the prisoner safe within it?"

"No, sir; I only found the planter's boat and crew, sir."

"Of course--just come back after helping their master to escape. And of course they denied it?"

"The black c.o.xswain was as much surprised as I was, sir," said Murray.

"Of course he was, Mr Murray; perfectly astounded. Bah, man! How can you be so innocent! Well, I suppose I must try and get you out of this horrible sc.r.a.pe, for all our sakes. Which is the c.o.xswain? That black fellow who has been staring at us all the time I have been listening to your lame excuses?"

"Yes, sir; and I have been thinking that he would be a valuable help to us in guiding us through the mazes of this strange place."

"Let's see first, Mr Murray, whether he will be any help to us in finding where the prisoner is. Call him here."

"I have been trying to use him in that way, sir."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lieutenant angrily. "Then now let Mr Roberts try. Here, Roberts!"

The midshipman stepped up to the officer quickly, after hearing every word that had been said.

"You called me, sir?"

"Of course I did, sir," said the lieutenant sharply, and speaking as if annoyed with himself for what he had been about to do. "Go back to the boat. Sharp!" The lad's eyes flashed with annoyance as he went back, and the chief officer turned his back and jerked his head to Murray.

"Here," he said, "you had better go on with this, my lad; it is your affair."

"Thank you, sir," said the lad, heaving a sigh of relief.

"Not much to thank me for, Murray," said the chief officer kindly, "but you've made a horrible mess of this business. Now then, the black fellow."

Murray made a sign to the black, who had been listening all through with his eyes seeming to start out of his head, and he sprang out of the boat and hurried to his side.

"Look here, Caesar," he said quickly, "do you know where Mr Allen is?"

The black looked him sharply in the eyes, then gazed at the first lieutenant, and then all around as if on the lookout for danger, before he crept closer and whispered--