“Yes, sir; that is right,” said the lad sadly.
“That is wrong, Mr Murray. Gone! And you stand here doing nothing! Confound it all, man, why are you not searching for him?”
“I have been searching for him, sir.”
“But you are here, my good sir, and have not found him.”
“No, sir, but I have done everything possible.”
“Except find him, sir. This comes of setting a boy like you to take charge of the prisoner. Well, it was the captain’s choice, not mine. I’ll be bound to say that if Mr Roberts had been sent upon this duty he would have had a very different tale to tell.”
Murray shivered in his misery, and tried to master the desire to glance at his brother middy, but failed, and saw that Roberts was beginning to swell with importance.
“Well, Mr Murray,” continued the lieutenant, after pausing for a few moments, after giving his subordinate this unkindly stab and, so to speak, beginning to wriggle his verbal weapon in the wound, “it is you who have to meet the captain when you go back after being relieved, not I. That I am thankful to say. But I fail to see, Mr Roberts, what is the good of setting you on duty with a fresh set of men to guard the prisoner, when there is no prisoner to guard. Here, show me where you bestowed the scoundrel.”
Murray led the way into the cottage, with his heart beating heavily with misery; the lieutenant followed him in silence; and Roberts came last, glancing at Murray the while and with his lips moving in silence as if he were saying, “I say, you’ve done it now!”
“Absurd!” cried the lieutenant, a few minutes later, and after looking through the room where the planter had lain down. “You might have been sure that the prisoner would escape. Then you did nothing to guard him?”