“Good-by, Jack,” said the agent, shaking the boy’s hand. “I’ve got you into tidy quarters, and shall expect to hear a good report of you.”
“What do you suppose keeps Flint?” asked Guy anxiously.
“I am sure I can’t tell. I have nothing to do with him, you know. Rupert shipped him—I didn’t. No doubt he’ll be aboard directly. Good-by.”
The agent disappeared over the side and Guy shouldered his dunnage and went down into the forecastle. Three or four of the bunks were already occupied, and, selecting one of the empty ones, Guy made up his bed in it, and then went on deck to look about him and await the arrival of Flint.
There were a few men on deck, the owners of the beds he had seen in the forecastle, but they did not notice Guy, and he was too much interested in his own affairs to have anything to say to them. Flint’s absence was the source of great anxiety to him. He could not account for it, and neither could he explain the remarkable resemblance between the man who met him as he came over the side and the second mate of the Santa Maria, whom he had last seen in the public room of the boarding-house.
“Could it be possible,” he asked himself—and at the thought the blood went rushing back upon his heart, leaving his face as pale as death itself—“that the agent had made a mistake and brought him to the Santa Maria instead of the Morning Light?”
“Great Cæsar!” thought Guy, catching his breath, “if that is the case I’m among the ghosts in spite of myself. I’ll ask some of these men. Of course they know the name of the vessel.”
As Guy was about to act upon this resolution his attention was attracted by the sound of oars, and running to the side he saw a large yawl approaching the ship.
His hopes arose wonderfully, but fell again when he discovered that there were but three men in the boat—two plying the oars and the other sitting in the stern with his hands on the tiller.
“Boat ahoy!” said the mate, leaning over the rail and speaking almost in a whisper.