Mr. Jukes hastily rummaged through the contents of the desk, selecting some papers, casting aside others as worthless, and gathered up on his hands and knees those on the floor. Then every cabin was searched and in each the millionaire took a few papers, but the look of anxiety on his face did not change, and the boys judged he had not found what he was in search of.
“Not a solitary clue,” he exclaimed with a heavy sigh as, dust-covered and perspiring from his exertions, he sank down at the long dining table in the main cabin. For a time he appeared lost in thought and the others stood about silently. To Jack it was almost awe-inspiring, to see this over-mastering man of affairs, who bullied whole corporations into his way of thinking, sitting there in the cabin of the derelict schooner utterly at a loss, and apparently defeated. At length Mr. Jukes spoke. His first words were a surprise:
“I suppose you all have heard of my brother, Jerushah Jukes?” he asked.
“The traveler and explorer?” asked Captain Sparhawk. “I guess every one in America knows of him, Mr. Jukes.”
Paying no attention to the captain’s reply, the millionaire went on.
“The papers reported some months ago that he had set out for Central Africa.”
“I read the account,” said Jack, “but——”
Mr. Jukes waved his hand. The boy fell into an abashed silence; in a second the millionaire had changed once more from a crushed, defeated human being into Jacob Jukes, millionaire and king of commerce.
“He did not go to Africa,” he said. “Instead, his destination was the South Pacific. He chartered this schooner, the Centurion, and the last I heard of him was when he set sail from San Francisco. If no news of him was received within a certain time I promised him to come in search of him. You see,” he added with a simplicity new from him, “he was my younger brother and I promised my mother on her death-bed always to look after him.”
There was a pause. In the silence of the long-deserted cabin they could hear the dismal creak of the neglected rudder and the bang-banging of the swinging spars above.