“Where are you, Mashter Herbert?” continued he, repeating the interrogatory in an altered form—at the same time craning his neck into the apartment, and glancing all around it. “Ash I live, it’sh empty, like the hammock! He musht have gone out. Yesh. Hish hat’s not here—his cloak ish not here; and I see no gun. He alwaysh kept hish gun joosh there. How hash he passed me without my hearing his foot? I shleeps so ash I can hear a cat shtealin’ over the floor! Hash he gone by the shtairway at all? Ash I live, no! Blesh my soul! there is a track where somebody musht have shumped over the railing down into the garden! S’help me, it ish his track! There’sh no other but him to have made it. What the deffil ish the young fellow after this morning? I hope there ish nothing wrong in it.”
On missing the young Englishman out of his hammock and room, the penn-keeper felt at first no particular uneasiness. His protégé had, no doubt, gone out for a stroll in the woods. He had taken his gun along with him, to have a shot at some early bird looking for the early worm. He had done so many a time before—though never at so early an hour.
The hour, however, was not enough of itself to cause any surprise to his patron; nor even the fact of his having leaped over the verandah railing. He might have seen the owner of the house asleep in his chair near the head of the stairway; and, not wishing to disturb him, had chosen the other mode of exit. There was nothing in all this to cause uneasiness.
Nor would the Jew have thought anything of it had it not been for some other circumstances which quickly came under his notice—guiding him to the suspicion that something might be amiss.
The first of these circumstances was that Herbert, although having taken his gun along with him, had left behind his shot-belt and powder-flask! Both were there in his room, hanging upon their peg. They did not escape the sharp glance of the Jew, who at once began to draw conclusions from their presence.
If the young man had gone out on a shooting excursion, it was strange that he did not take his ammunition along with him!
Perhaps, however, he had seen some sort of game near the house, and, in his hurry to get a shot at it, had gone off hastily—trusting to the two charges which his gun contained. In that case he would not go far, and in a few minutes might be expected back.
A few minutes passed, and a great many minutes—until a full hour had transpired—and still nothing was heard or seen of the book-keeper, though messengers had been dispatched in search of him, and had quartered all the ground for half a mile around the precincts of the penn.
Jessuron—whose matutinal visit to the minister had been postponed by the occurrence—began to look grave.
“It ish shtrange,” said he, speaking to his daughter, who had now arisen, and was far from appearing cheerful; “shtrange he should go abroad in thish fashion, without shaying a word to either of ush!”