“Look here,” he said, as I joined him, “we can keep below here, and command the river too, without being seen. Why, Herrick, my lad, this is capital; they will never suspect this Chinese boat to be manned by a crew of Her Majesty’s Jacks.”
“Then everything has turned out for the best,” I cried eagerly.
“Humph! that remains to be proved, my lad. We’ve got to return and face Mr Reardon and the captain, and the first question asked of an officer who has been entrusted with one of Her Majesty’s boats, and who returns without it, is— What have you done with the boat or ship? We—yes, you are in the mess, sir—have to go back and say that we have lost it.”
“Why, the captain owned to Pat that a thing couldn’t be lost when you knew where it was.”
“I don’t understand you, my lad,” said Mr Brooke.
“Don’t you remember about the captain’s tea-kettle, sir, that Pat dropped overboard? It was not lost, because Pat knew where it was—at the bottom of the sea.”
“Oh yes, I remember; but I’m afraid Captain Thwaites will not take that excuse.”
“Why, she has gone down already, sir,” I said, as I looked over the side for the boat we had left.
“Yes; but I can see the grating floating. The coxswain took his jacket out of the hole.”
He pointed to the stout piece of woodwork which we had turned into a buoy, but I could not make it out, and I thought it did not much matter, for something else had begun to trouble me a great deal just then, and I waited very anxiously for my officer to make some proposal.