"Yes, many of those cloud-effects are very lovely!"
A few more minutes brought them close to the wreck. Ella was looking at it steadfastly.
"I do not see George Petherton," she again remarked.
"He is probably below deck, smoking his pipe, or trying to fish up some more of the cargo. George is not the sort of man to care for sunset-effects." Hubert said this with a short, hard laugh, which Ella, preoccupied, took little notice of. It was well perhaps that she did not see the expression of his face. It had changed strangely during the last few minutes. His mouth was hard-set, and in his eyes there sat a look which might have been set down as compounded of despair, burning passion, and desperate resolve.
Hubert shipped his oars, and made a trumpet of his hands to sing out. "Hillo there! Petherton--Petherton, I say, where are you?" But there came no answer; there was no sign of life whatever on board the wreck.
"Can he have gone ashore?" exclaimed Ella, quickly.
"Not likely," returned Hubert. "He is shut in below, smoking his pipe, and cannot hear: perhaps has dropped asleep. I will go and arouse him. But let me help you on board first, Miss Winter.--Hark! yes, George is there, safe enough. I hear him."
He brought the boat up under the lee of the wreck, made her fast with a rope, sprang lightly on the _Seamew's_ deck, and turned to assist Miss Winter.
But Ella held back. "Go and tell him to come and help you to get me up," she said laughingly.
Hubert disappeared down the cabin stairs. He did not come back immediately. Left alone in the boat, Ella began to feel anxious, vaguely uneasy. Could she but have divined his treachery! He knew perfectly well that George Petherton was not on board, that he had gone ashore at mid-day.