The tutor was prepared for this decision.
“By all means,” said he. “We will go to-morrow to inquire after a passenger or sailor who was on board a sailing-vessel, nationality unknown, which happened to be off Havana in a heavy sea on October 20, ten years ago.”
“I know it’s absurd,” said Roger, “but I can’t help it. I never seemed so near my brother before. I should despise myself if I sat idle here.”
So it happened that, just when Maxfield was preparing in a quiet way to celebrate the coming of age of the heir; just as the gloom which had followed on Captain Oliphant’s tragic death was beginning to lift a little and allow Tom and Jill decorously to think of football; just as Rosalind was beginning to make up her mind that she was not destined for ever to teach the elements of art and science to the Vicarage children; just when everything seemed to be settling down for the last scene of the drama, Roger and his tutor vanished once more on their familiar wild-goose chase.
Dr Brandram grumbled; the county gentry shook their heads; Mr Pottinger breathed again. No one thought well of the expedition; some went so far as to make a jest of it.
Roger cared nothing for what people thought. With Armstrong to back him, with Rosalind to bid him a brave God-speed, with his own stout heart to buoy him up, and with his lost brother only ten years distant, he could afford to start in good cheer, and let the world think what it liked.
But the cheer was destined to failure. They heard of one or two vessels called the “Cyclops,” but respecting the crew or passengers, of none of them was it possible to glean a word of news. The vessel in question might have been ship, schooner, or barque; she might have been English, American, Indian, or Australian; she might have foundered, or changed her name, or been broken up for lumber. Lloyds knew her not. West India merchants had never heard of her. Of all their quests, this seemed the most vague and hopeless.
Up to the last, Roger stuck doggedly to it. Even if he spent his majority in the London docks he would not turn tail. The tutor backed up loyally, did most of the work, made most of the inquiries, never grumbled or gibed or protested. When Roger looked most like giving in, it was the tutor who put fresh heart into him.
“To-morrow,” said Roger on the eve of his birthday, “I will give it up. But there is a day yet.”
And sure enough, on the last day, a vague ray of light came in the shape of a telegram from the port-master at Havana, to whom, at the tutor’s suggestion, a message of inquiry had been sent:—