"Upon my word, Mr. Burroughs, I don't know. I never thought of him. I suppose----"
"Mr. Stevens, was Errington on the boat?" asked Burroughs, stepping towards the gangway and taking the merchant by the sleeve.
"Errington! Of course he was. That is, I suppose so. We are all here; but such a crowd of us that we were very much mixed up. Hamilton, did you see Errington?"
"Surely: but no, now I come to think of it, I didn't. Isn't he here?"
Answers of the same kind came from all the passengers who were interrogated. In the confusion and excitement, in their preoccupation with themselves and their families, they hardly knew who had been among them, and who not. It was very soon certain, however, that Errington was not among those who left the vessel.
"What can have happened to him?" Burroughs said to Mr. Ting anxiously. "He's such a hot-headed chap that it would be just like him to show fight."
Mr. Ting looked more troubled than Burroughs had ever before seen him.
"I hope he is safe," he said. "Plaps he escaped in a sampan, and will come by and by. We must wait and see."
But though several vessels came down in the course of the day, bringing native merchants who had fled from the city, Errington was not in any of them, nor did his boy appear. Mr. Ting's journey up-stream was necessarily abandoned. With the rebels in possession of the river no one would be safe. It was with very anxious hearts that Burroughs and the Chinaman awaited the dawn of another day.
CHAPTER X