I went up and saw two—disgusting objects they were—with their noses and lips cut off. I couldn't stand the sight; I'd had no breakfast, and walked away, feeling dazed and sick, and opened my mouth and drew in the sea breeze to drive the smoke fumes away from my head.
Trevelyan joined me in a few minutes. "One of those fellows has been shot at very close quarters, for his clothes are singed and blackened, and the other has had his head battered in. Look, sir! they must have been dragged along there," and he pointed to a broad mark, running along the mud from the bushes to the furrows.
He ought to have been a detective, ought Trevelyan, and was off in a "jiffy" to search for fresh traces. "Footmarks! bootmarks! plenty of them, sir," he shouted presently, and I saw him bending down and measuring them with his handkerchief. "Ours, I expect," I sang back; but he shook his head, and presently came up to me in a great pitch of excitement—he had taken his own boots off by this time to avoid making any more marks—"There are at least three different sizes down there, sir! European bootmarks too. One of them might belong to Travers, but there are some very much larger ones than his, and I don't think that one man made them all. There must have been several Europeans down here early this morning. This must be where the pirates landed and shoved off again, sir—two of the boats more or less together, and the third half an hour or so later—but I'm bothered if I can make out those two corpses, and what they are doing here."
I dragged him away. He was very reluctant to go, and kept turning back and scanning the shore with his glasses. Suddenly he took me by the shoulder—I was so "jumpy" that his touch gave me quite a shock—"Look there, sir! What's that?" and before I could say anything he darted back, began to undress, and then wading and swimming, and clinging to some fishing stakes which jutted out from the shore, he made his way to where something hung from the farthest fishing stake. I could see that it was something coloured, and as he came back with it I recognized it as a shawl belonging to Mrs. Macpherson, and remembered that she had told us that Sally Hobbs had borrowed one before going down to the fire.
I knew what it all meant now—her disappearance—the bootmarks on the shore—the furrows of those boat keels—and the shawl—and that the poor little girl had again fallen into the hands of those fiends of pirates. One cannot explain, or describe, how one feels on occasions like this, though I do know that when Trevelyan rejoined me presently, blue in the face with cold, and with his teeth chattering, but bringing the shawl, and intensely eager to solve the mystery, I felt as though I wanted to hit him, and hated to have to tell him all it meant.
"Give it to me," I said harshly.
"No, sir; I cannot. I found it, and if it turns out as you say, I'm going to give it back to her."
We said not a word as we trudged back to the Mission House, neither of us caring to speak of what we feared. Ten minutes ago I should have been inexpressibly pleased to have found Travers, but now I eagerly hoped that he had been kidnapped too, and that, in some way or other, he might be able to protect her—for her father I cared not two straws, nor did I place reliance on any effort of his to save either of them.
Fortunately Captain Lester was waiting for us near the ruins of the Mission House, and it was a relief to find him in a bad temper. He didn't wait to hear what I had to tell him, but, shaking his fist at me, bellowed out, "This is the work of those villainous pirates"—he was hardly able to speak for rage. "Set fire to the town—right under my nose—made a fool of Old Lest, and cleared out again without a scratch. And that little lass too! What's become of her and of that fool Travers? I can't trust a single one of my officers. Umph! Here you go ashore to put out a fire, don't save anyone, and shoot that chap Ching. Umph! I'd like to—— Umph!"
I rapidly told him all that had happened.