“To a certain extent, my lad,” said the officer, “but I have made a shrewd guess at what has been going on, and it strikes me that our friend Mr Allen has been dabbling largely in the trade that we are here to suppress.”
“You think that, sir?”
“Yes, my lad—and repented of it when too late, and found himself, after growing disgusted with it, unable to draw back on account of this man, who has committed him deeply.”
“Yes, I see, sir,” cried Roberts eagerly. “That would account for the American’s overbearing insolence to this Mr Allen and to you, sir. But surely he cannot be right about the island here being under the American Government?”
“Certainly not, I think, Mr Roberts,” said the lieutenant decisively; “but I do think this, that he might have kept up the assertion that he was correct and made complaints to the Americans and called our visit here a trespass. This would have caused an enormous amount of trouble to the captain, and so much official correspondence that we should have bitterly repented coming here in search of a newly-run cargo of slaves.”
“Do you think we shall find one here, sir?” asked Roberts.
“I feel pretty certain, my lad, as certain as that we should not have dared to prosecute our search in face of the scoundrel’s defiance and bravado. But now the tide has completely set in our favour.”
“In our favour, sir?” said Roberts wonderingly.
“Why, of course, my lad. If our visit here had been aggression, all the rascal had to do was to call upon us, after his declaration, to withdraw; and that was what he meant to do, although the fellow’s natural insolence induced him to do so in that bullying way.”
“And instead of keeping to what he had a right to do, sir,” cried the middy eagerly, “he let his blackguardly followers attack us as they did.”