“Why, sir, there isn’t much of anything else,” the man answered. “Miss Yorke said that they ought to have taken Mr. Rowan up with them, and that she did not understand how they had allowed themselves to be sent away in such a manner. And Miss Clara she said that you—isn’t there a boat ahead, sir?”
“No. What if there is? Go on.” He could not help being impatient.
“Well, Miss Clara she said that you knew best, and she wasn’t afraid of leaving Mr. Rowan to your care.”
The captain sat with his oar suspended, and stared straight ahead. The seaman hesitated, then returned good for evil. “Miss Clara was mightily taken with the way you went overboard, sir. She thought that you did it in a very splendid fashion. I told her I didn’t know any other way you could have done it, unless you had gone over back’ards, like Captain Rowan. She tossed up her head at that, and marched off, and got into the carriage.”
The captain’s oars flashed down into the water, and he gave a pull that made their boat skim the wave like a bird.
When they reached the Point, the fire was out, and no person was in sight. Captain Cary hastened up the bank to the wigwam where he had left Dick Rowan, but as he laid his hand on the fold of canvas a gruff voice inside challenged him.
“I want Captain Rowan,” he called out.
A brief “He not here!” was the reply.
“Where is he, then?”
“Don’t know.”