“Confound him!” cried the Captain excitedly. “Who was the man? He ought to have known something was wrong when he saw the two lads alone in her like that.”
“He would be a stranger to you, sir,” said Hellyer. “He wer’ a man from the Hayling beat as just come on fresh to jine this station here to-day, sir. He’s a man, sir, of the name of Jones, and rayther soft, like!”
“How unfortunate!” muttered the Captain, while Mr Strong groaned and upbraided himself for his seeming harshness to Bob in the morning. “How very unlucky!”
“Of course,” went on the coastguardsman earnestly, in deep sympathy with both—“the moment the man tells me of this, I knows what happens, seeing that blessed sea-fog a creeping up and the wind falling; and so I goes off to the commander and tells him what I thinks—as how Master Bob and that young Dick o’ yourn, Cap’en, were most likely all adrift and couldn’t fetch in to the land. I—”
“But what did your commander do?” cried the old sailor, interrupting. “Tell me that!”
“Why, sir, he sent word round to all our stations and down to the Dockyard, and he’s telegraphed likewise to the h’island so as how there’ll be a strict look-out kep’ all round the coast for the poor lads.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Hellyer, and to the commander as well,” said the Captain as he and Mr Strong turned away mournfully, retracing their steps back to “the Moorings.” “I’m afraid we can do nothing more now.”
No, nothing more could be done then.
The morning brought no news to gladden their hearts or brighten their hopes.
Matters, indeed, looked worse than had been expected.