He sat considering for a few minutes, then went out again to the garden with the letters in his hand.
'Father, I must tell you and Mr. Casalle what is troubling me. Don't think me foolish.'
'Certainly not, my boy,' said Mr. Wallis, who knew that Jack must have some good reason for speaking as he did.
'Well, come inside, and let us read those letters again. Father, it may be that Tom is not on board Captain Hawkins's ship after all.'
'What!' cried Mr. Wallis in startled tones. 'What on earth makes you think that, Jack?'
Entering the sitting-room and closing the door, the two men seated themselves at the table, and looked expectantly at Jack, who stood, his grey eyes filled with trouble.
'Father, this is what makes me think that some fresh mishap has come to Tom. Now, listen; here is what Tom says in one part of his letter--
'"There is a Maori half-caste on board named Chester. He and I are great friends."
'Now it is just those words which keep running in my head, because of something in Captain Casalle's letter--that part about Bully Hayes and his ship.' Then he read--
'"During the fighting she also took, or was set on, fire, and only for another vessel (said to be a Sydney brig) coming to her assistance, the niggers would have massacred every one of the crew. After this Hayes touched at Fortuna Island for provisions, and while there fell foul of one of his officers, a New Zealand half-caste, who seems to have been lent to him by the Sydney brig, and was about to flog him, but in the night this man, with a white sailor and a young lad, who was a passenger (on the Leonie, I suppose), escaped in one of the boats, after scuttling the brig in two places."