“Yes, and don’t the slaving people know it well?”
“Of course they must.”
“Then isn’t it possible for them to have held on, sailing all they knew, and made for some other river or creek running into the shore right up perhaps into some lagoon or lake known only to themselves, and where we could not follow, knowing so little as we do of the country?”
“Oh, I say,” cried Roberts, “what a miserable old prophet of ill you are, Frank! You shouldn’t go on like that. Haven’t we been disappointed enough, without coming in for worse things still? You might as well stick to it that the lugger has been sunk.”
“I can’t, old fellow,” said Murray, “for I honestly believe—”
“Oh, bother your honest beliefs!” cried Roberts pettishly. “Be dishonest for once in a way. You might give us a bit of sunshine to freshen us up. Haven’t we got enough to go through yet, with the captain fuming over our failure and being ready to bully us till all’s blue?”
“Can’t help it, old fellow; I must say what I feel. But there, we needn’t talk, for we shall soon know now.”
The lieutenant was of the same opinion, for he suddenly rose from where he was seated, and pressing the sheets on one side as he went forward he made for the bows, where he stood looking out where the mouth of the river became a wide estuary, and then came back to his place in the stern sheets, and as he sat down he pointed past the sails.
“There, gentlemen,” he said; “there lies the Seafowl, in quite a different position; but there is no lugger.”
“No, sir, but there lies the second cutter,” cried Roberts; and he pointed to where their fellow boat was sailing far away and close in shore. “That means she had been chasing the lugger until a lucky shot from the sloop sunk her.”