Ferguson looked at him for a few moments with the same scrutinizing look that he had already turned upon him.
“Where are you going now?” he asked at length; “back to the boys?”
“Wal—not jest yet,” answered Corbet, after a pause. “The fact is, I was thinkin a little of takin a turn over Miramichi way—on business. I won’t belong, and they’ll be all right till I get back from Miramichi.”
“O, the boys’ll have to wait for you, in the place where they now are, till you get back from Miramichi—so that’s it.”
Ferguson spoke these words slowly and deliberately, with his eyes fixed on Captain Corbet. The latter looked somewhat uncomfortable, and for a while said nothing; but at length he murmured,—
“Wal—I s’pose—that’s—about—it.”
X.
The Baffled Inquisitor.—Corbet’s Flight by Night.—Dead Beckoning.—His Purpose accomplished.—Once more an unwelcome Visitor.—The warning Words.—Corbet confident.—“Right straight back”—The stormy Water.—The gloomy Night and the gloomier Day.—Where is the Petrel?—Despair of Corbet.
FINDING that Captain Corbet was obstinate in his refusal to tell him about the boys, Ferguson at length desisted from his inquiries, and departed from the Antelope, much to the relief of the commander of that vessel. But, though he had left the Antelope, he had by no means given up his investigations into the cause of her present voyage. He at once rowed to the shore, with the intention of finding out from the people there what had been Corbet’s business among them.