The girl started back in astonishment.
“Law, mum!” said she, addressing her mistress, Mrs Gilmour. “Ain’t he with you, mum?”
“No,” she replied, much frightened at Sarah’s answer, or rather counter-question; while Mrs Strong grew as pale as death and Nellie clung to her convulsively, Rover’s demeanour having roused their worst fears. “You don’t mean to say you haven’t seen him?”
“No, mum, I thought he was with you,” repeated the housemaid, beginning to cry as if accused of some fault. “I’ve never set eyes on Master Bob since he went out to bathe before you did, mum, this morning!”
“I wonder where the young rascal is?” sang out the Captain in a jovial sort of way, to allay the alarm of the others and hide his own uneasiness. “You’d better get inside out of the damp all of you while I go off to the coastguard-station. I wouldn’t mind betting a brass farthing I’ll find Master Bob there hobnobbing with Hellyer and Dick. He’s very fond of going there to listen to my old coxswain’s yarns when he has got a chance.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Mr Strong, not liking to let him go alone, besides also beginning to feel anxious, adding to his wife— “Go in, Edith! you need not be uneasy. We’ll soon bring back our young truant!”
So saying, he and the Captain, followed by Rover with drooping tail, started for the coastguard-station on the beach.
However, on getting there, their fears, instead of being dispelled, were, on the contrary, alarmingly heightened!
Hellyer told them that he had not come on duty until a late hour in the day; and had then not seen anything of either Bob or Dick.
“The man as I relieved,” continued the coastguardsman, “told me as how he seed two boys in the Cap’en’s boat about midday; and, all at once, arter his dinner, for which he goes into the cabin, you know, he misses the boat and the boys too. But, he doesn’t think anythink o’ this, he says, believin’ they has took her into the harbour.”