A look round the deck showed that he was not there, and Bob stood looking puzzled; for the man had evidently looked upon himself almost as a prisoner, and not free to go about; he had consequently stood leaning against the port bulwark all the time, except when he had squatted on the deck to partake of the food supplied to him.
“Couldn’t have been knocked overboard by the boughs, could he, sir?” said Dick.
“Impossible!” exclaimed the middy; and he hurried off to report the fact that the Malay was missing.
“Are you sure?” exclaimed the lieutenant sharply.
“Certain, sir! He’s nowhere on deck!”
“I thought as much!” cried the lieutenant angrily. “Good heavens, Roberts! that we could have been such idiots! Gray was right!”
“I do not understand you, sir.”
“Understand? It’s plain enough! That man, Private Gray, said he suspected the fellow, and yet we allowed him to gull us with his plausible story. Here, look sharp there!” he cried, as the steamer stood out now free of the tunnel-like canal through which she had passed, and was now approaching the centre of a tolerably broad lagoon.
The lieutenant gave his command in short, sharp, decisive tones, and a minute later a little anchor fell with a splash into the water, and the steamer swung in the just perceptible stream.
“I dare not attempt the journey back to-night, Roberts,” he said. “We should be aground in the thick darkness before we had gone a mile.”