What it all meant was more than he could figure out, or even guess. The only possible solution he could hit upon was that this Hornblower, as he called himself, was in need of a cabin-boy, or perhaps a sailor, and he took this rather summary way of securing one, without the preliminary of obtaining the consent of the party most concerned.
Whoever Mr. Hornblower might be, it looked as if he had made elaborate preparations for the game played with such success.
"Poor Tom will be worried to death when he finds nothing of me," was the natural fear of Jim, while turning over in his mind the extraordinary situation in which he was placed. Despite the warning uttered by his captor before leaving, the boy stole up the steps and stealthily tried the door. It was fastened too securely for him to force it.
As he sat down again in the chair, he heard feet on the deck, and he concluded that his master had come back to see whether all was right.
But the fellow did not touch the cabin-door; and a minute later the lad noticed that two men were moving about, then the sounds showed that the sail was being hoisted. He could distinguish their words as they exchanged directions, and it was not long before the rippling water told that the schooner was under way.
"Like enough they have started for China or the Cape of Good Hope, and I won't see Tom again for years."
He sat still in the cabin, which was lit by a lamp suspended overhead, and which soon became so warm from the stove and confined air, that he did what he could to cool off the interior.
He had just finished this when he felt a draught of cold air, and looking up, saw an ugly face peering down on him from the cabin door.
"Hello, you're down there, are you?" called out the man; "how do you like it?"
"It's getting rather warm," answered Jim, hoping to make the best of a bad business.