The next moment the steward—who, under pretense of going to the locker for a certain dish, had contrived to make his way stealthily to the deck—glided to the waist-boat, cautiously glancing around him to make sure that he was not observed, quickly severed with his knife the lashings and also the falls. Then he pushed the vessel overboard, and making his way to the captain’s boat, he sprung into it, severed the rope that held it to the ship, and seized the steering-oar.
“Free!” he muttered, exultingly, as he rapidly sculled the craft away from the Montpelier, and gave the other boat a shove with his foot, “me clear of dis vessel at last, and me soon be picked up by some other ship, for de Ochotsk Sea is full of ’em. De cap’n can no come after me,” he added, glancing toward the waist-boat, which was drifting off with the current. “He! he! he! me serve ’em fine trick. Good idee dat, to cut adrift Spooner’s boat, so dey no can catch me. Dey hang me, sure, if dey did!”
As he spoke he redoubled his exertions, and he was soon so far from the Montpelier that he would have been completely shrouded by the fog from the gaze of any person on deck. The boats were not missed until half an hour afterward. The captain was the first to perceive the loss, which overwhelmed him with astonishment, indignation, and grief. The helmsman was awakened and questioned, but he could throw no light upon the subject; and it was not until many hours afterward—when the prolonged absence of the steward from the cabin began to be remarked—that any definite conclusions began to be formed.
“Ay, ay,” said Briggs, in his blunt way, “I always did suspect that fellow; and now I feel certain that he has deserted the ship, and that he cut away the other boat to prevent us from catching him!”
“It is a terrible loss,” replied the captain, with a groan—“the loss of those boats, at the present moment; for we have not another in the ship, and so have no means of going in search of Alice. God help her! God help the poor girl!”
CHAPTER IX.
THE DISAPPEARANCE.
To return to the little party upon the ice.
We left our friend Stump, sitting in a very uncomfortable position, near the edge of the frozen block, and complaining because the lovers had not yet unfastened his bonds.
“Oh, a thousand pardons, my dear friend!” replied Alice, blushing deeply. “It was, indeed, very wrong, on my part, to forget you.”
“I am more to blame, Alice, than you are,” interrupted Marline, drawing his sheath-knife, and proceeding to cut the cords from the wrists and ankles of the prostrate seaman. “Ay, ay, old chum,” he added, as Stump, with a sigh of relief, arose to his feet, and began to kick the “cramp” from his little legs; “it is all my fault that you were overlooked.”