Part 3 (1/2)
”And while we sail south we shall be leaving the mouth behind, Mr Anderson, eh?”
”If it proves to be so, sir,” replied the first lieutenant gravely, ”we must sail north again and again too, until we find the entrance.”
”Humph! Yes, sir; but hang it all, are my officers asleep, that we are sailing up and down here month after month without doing anything?
Here, Mr Murray, what are you thinking about, sir?”
The lad started, for his chief had suddenly fired his question at him like a shot.
”Well, sir, why don't you answer my question?”
”I beg your pardon, sir,” replied Murray now. ”I was thinking.”
”Yes, sir, you were thinking,” cried the captain pa.s.sionately. ”I know you were thinking, and saying to yourself that you had a most unreasonable captain.”
Murray was silent, and the first lieutenant and the other mids.h.i.+pman, after exchanging a glance, fixed their eyes upon the monotonous sh.o.r.e.
”Do you hear me, sir?” thundered the captain, as if he were speaking to the lookout at the mast-head instead of the lad close to him. ”That was what you were thinking, was it not? Come: the truth.”
He bent forward to gaze straight into the boy's eyes as if determined to get an answer.
”Yes, sir,” said the lad desperately, ”something of that sort;” and then to himself, ”Oh, murder! I'm in for it now!”
”Yes, I knew you were, Mr Murray,” cried the captain. ”Thank you. I like my junior officers to speak out truthfully and well. Makes us place confidence in them, Mr Anderson, eh?”
”Yes, sir,” growled the chief officer, ”but it isn't always pleasant.”
”Quite right, Mr Anderson, and it sounds like confounded impudence, too. But we're wasting time, and it is valuable. I'm going to have that schooner found. The sea's as smooth as an inland lake, so man and lower down the cutters. You take the first cutter, Mr Anderson, Munday the second. Row or sail to north and south as the wind serves, and I'll stand out a bit to see that you don't start the game so that it escapes.
You young gentlemen had better go with the boats.”
Murray glanced at the old officer, and to the question in his eyes there came a nod by way of answer.
”You always have the luck, Franky,” grumbled Roberts, as soon as they were alone.
”Nonsense! You have as good a chance as I have of finding the schooner.”
”What, with prosy old Munday! Why, he'll most likely go to sleep.”
”So much the better for you. You can take command of the boat and discover the schooner's hiding-place.”
”Of course. Board her, capture the Spanish--”
”Or Yankee,” said Murray.
”Captain!” snapped out Roberts. ”Oh yes, I know. Bother! I do get so tired of all this.”
Tired or no, the young man seemed well on the alert as he stepped into the second cutter, and soon after each of the boats had run up their little sail, for a light breeze was blowing, and, leaving the sloop behind, all the men full of excitement as every eye was fixed upon the long stretches of mangrove north and south in search of the hidden opening which might mean the way into some creek, or perhaps the half-choked-up entrance into one of the muddy rivers of the vast African sh.o.r.e.
CHAPTER THREE.