“To be sure he was. If he had been awake he would have seen those deer and given warning, seeing how all the men are longing for a bit of fresh meat.”
“Well, it seems probable,” said Panton.
“No seem about it, Mr Panton. He was fast asleep, sir, till I fired. Then he woke up and was all eagerness. Now if I was not a good-tempered, easy-going sort of man, do you know what I should do?”
“Haul that bit of sail down and let him take his chance of getting an arrow in him for his neglect.”
The mate walked away, and ordered another man aloft to take the culprit’s place, the offender receiving a very severe bullying, and being sent below.
The day wore slowly by, and as it grew towards sundown, Mr Rimmer began to walk faster about the deck with a growing anxiety which was shared by Drew’s two companions.
“I don’t know who’d be in command!” he said. “Here have I just got through one worry because you didn’t return, had a sharp attack from savages, and had you two badly wounded; and now off goes Mr Drew and gets himself lost. Here has he been away all these hours, and he might have been back in six. There, I know how it is. The niggers are out in force, and have got between them and the brig as sure as can be, that is if they haven’t been killed before now. It will be dark directly, and as sure as fate we shall have another attack to-night. Wish I hadn’t let him go.”
“He’ll be too cautious to get into a trap,” said Oliver, whose face looked drawn and old with anxiety.
“He’ll mean to be, sir, but the blacks have a cleverness of their own, and it’s hard to get the better of them, civilised as we are. Tut, tut, tut! It would be madness to start in search of them without knowing which way to go.”
“Yet, they would be as likely to come from the west as the east.”