Part 74 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+vered 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.”