Trevelyan disappeared with him and came back triumphantly. He had that glove which we had picked up behind the Mission House. "We were right, after all, sir! That was his glove, and he had borrowed Lawrence's handkerchief. I've got that much out of him. He says he'll never stuff a handkerchief up his sleeve again. He'd given a couple of pounds" (if there had been anyone to borrow from) "not to have dropped it."
"It's the first thing I've ever got back after he once borrowed it," Lawrence sang out, and we all laughed with him.
The Skipper came in presently (Hoffman had been dining with him, but had turned in directly afterwards), and we dragged Old Bax, the Fleet Paymaster, to the piano and made him sing, "Tam Pearce, Tam Pearce, bring me my grey mare"; and the Skipper joined in the chorus and smoked, and Old Bax "cadged" his best cigars from him and smoked them, one after another. The Skipper grunted and growled, and was redder in the face than ever, took off his mess jacket and loosened his braces, and beat everyone else at feats of strength, and was as happy as a sand-boy. He went down into the gunroom to say a few words, as he put it, and I went with him. He squeezed himself in, and, as they all stood up, growled out, "Umph! Sit down, please! 'Old Lest' will give you all a show—later on. If those two steamers are there when we get in to-morrow afternoon, umph! we'll go in and sink 'em. If there ain't enough water for the boats, we'll swim" (huge yells of delight). "Good night, gentlemen; three of you have done a bit of fighting, the Fleet Surgeon hopes to get Morton off the sick list in a day or two, and I hope you others will do as well. Umph! You can have half an hour's extra lights."
They made a perfect deafening noise, gave three cheers and a "tiger", and then he came back to the ward room, and stayed there till after midnight—the youngest of the lot of us—he and Old Bax chaffing each other in broad West Country dialect. Old Bax had "wiped his eye", the last time they had gone shooting, by bagging a woodcock which the Skipper had missed with both barrels, and never lost an opportunity of reminding him of it.
Whitmore and I slipped away long before the ward room singsong was finished, and the ship quiet again, because we had to make all arrangements for manning and arming boats if necessary. You see, we had so many seaman ratings away, that it was rather difficult to fill their places.
Hoffman had his breakfast in his cabin, and spent two hours alone with the Skipper during the morning, and I did not see him again till we were nearing the Hector Group late in the afternoon. He then came up and helped Lawrence pick his way among the islands towards the one where he said that Hobbs and Sally were imprisoned.
We all hoped to discover the tramp steamer and the yacht anchored there, but very much feared that the prisoners might have been spirited away again in one or other of them. The anxiety grew greater as we drew nearer, and was shared by every soul on board, for everyone knew by this time all that I myself knew.
It struck me as peculiar how intimate and accurate was Hoffman's knowledge of the local pilotage. There seemed to be some strange "bond" between him and the Skipper, and I felt sure, from the Skipper's manner to him, and from his silence to me, that there was something which I did not know, and which would explain a good many things when I did know it.
One thing indeed the Captain had told me, blurting it out when I reported "defaulters" to him, and found him and Hoffman together. "Hoffman tells me that that rascally Englishman, who sold that yacht of his to Hobbs, is bossing this show. He's hanging on to Hobbs and Sally, and trying to force the poor little lass to marry him—umph! or make her father pay a pretty penny. He'll skin him out pretty thoroughly, I'll be bound."
"If you don't get hold of her quickly, Captain, I believe she'll consent," Hoffman said.