“How do I know he’d ever come back?”
“He hasn’t got his wages, has he?” grinned Cross. “Don’t give him anything to spend, and he’s bound to come back. Besides, he’s got it in for that tall, gray-haired lubber himself. I know that from some words he let drop when he didn’t know I was near.”
Nick Carter overheard this confab, notwithstanding that it was conducted in hoarse whispers, and it coincided with his inclinations exactly.
He wanted to get ashore, for he was nervous over the way Rayne had left the ship.
He knew it was not like the Apache to give up a purpose he had nearly carried to fruition without fighting it to the end, and he believed something more would be heard of him before they were out of San Juan.
It would suit Nick exactly to go ashore, and, as he did not know just when he would be back, he resolved that he would take at least one of his assistants with him.
He was glad when he found that the master of the Cherokee was willing that he should go.
“Will you go into the town and see if you can get any trace of that lubber who jumped overboard, Sykes?” asked Captain Lawton, turning to him with as propitiatory an expression as his rocky face would permit. “Just loaf around in saloons and places where you’d be likely to pick up news.”
“And if I find the man?” asked Nick.
“Bring him aboard, and I’ll deal with him,” was the significant answer. “Once you find him, that will be enough.”