“Massa come along quick. Nobody here.”
“How’s that?” cried Murray. “Isn’t Mr Allen there?”
“No, massa. Him gone along Massa Huggin—take him right away, so him no tell Bri’sh officer where all de slabes hid ashore, and whar to fine de slaber ship.”
“Light is beginning to dawn into my benighted intellect now, Mr Murray,” said the lieutenant, following the midshipman, as, carefully sheltering the little taper from the damp wind which seemed to blow up from the hole in the floor, the lad stepped down quickly after the black. “And it seems to me, for your comfort, my lad, that you need not be in the slightest degree alarmed at the prospect of facing the captain and being called to account for the loss of your prisoner, for your loss is going to turn out a great gain. Here, follow close up with the men, Mr Roberts. No, not next; I’ll have May behind me; he’s big and strong, and he’s something to depend upon if we have a sudden attack.”
Roberts winced and frowned, for he felt as if his dignity had been a little touched at being put aside to make way for the big sailor, and in addition the chief officer had spoken in a way which made matters take a different turn from what he had expected.
If any one had asserted that he was a bit jealous and envious of his brother middy he would have denied it with indignation, but all the same there was a something near akin to envy somewhere in his breast, and he would have liked it a great deal better if he had been called upon to play several of the parts which somehow would fall to Murray’s share.
So Dick Roberts frowned as he grasped the clumsy cutlass that had been handed to him by one of the men, and then after four of the party had received orders to mount guard at the entrance to the subterranean way, he followed closely upon Tom May’s bulky form, ready to help protect those who had gone before; and grasping his weapon very tightly he stood at last at the foot of the stairs in a well-paved arched way just lit faintly by the wax taper, and was able to see that the passage was composed of the lava which had been quarried from one of the volcanic masses thrown from a burning mountain ages before.
“Keep together, my lads, close up,” said the lieutenant; and his voice sounded whispering and strange as it seemed to reverberate down a passage, and finally died away.
“Where does this lead to, I wonder?” said the midshipman softly, and the walls repeated “I wonder” in a tone that sounded loud.