“Oh!”
There was a pause before someone asked the inevitable silly question.
“What did they say?”
“They are secret orders,” said Roberts, and now there was a touch of pomposity in his voice—it might be to compensate for his lack of knowledge, or it might be because Roberts was now growing more aware of the dignity of his position as second in command. “If Mr. Buckland had taken me into his confidence I still could not tell you.”
“True enough,” said Carberry.
“What did the captain do?” asked Lomax.
“Poor devil,” said Clive. With all attention turned to him Clive grew expansive. “We might be fiends from the pit! You should have seen him cower away when we came in. Those morbid terrors grow more acute.”
Clive awaited a request for further information, and even though none was forthcoming he went on with his story.
“We had to find the key to his desk. You would have thought we were going to cut his throat, judging by the way he wept and tried to hide. All the sorrows of the world—all the terrors of hell torment that wretched man.”
“But you found the key?” persisted Lomax.