“I can’t fathom this nohow. I know Captain Baldwin would never give leave for the mate to be ashore, especially in a place like Whydah, when he is out of the ship himself.”
“Well, Jack,” said Willie, “what can I do? While the captain is out of the ship I must obey Mr. Pentlea’s orders.”
“That’s true; but you might send a note to the captain, sir.”
“Certainly, I can do that.”
Willie at once went to the cabin with the intention of writing a letter to our father; but Mr. Pentlea, seeing him going in, said, “What are you going into the cabin for? go and attend to your work;” and a few minutes afterwards he sent Willie and myself aloft to the fore and main topmast cross-trees to examine, as he said, the eyes of the topmast rigging.
While we were still aloft he got into the surf-boat, into which he had four bales of valuable cloth put, and shoved off; and from aloft both Willie and I could see that the boat was making for quite a different part of the beach from that where the factory to which our father had gone was situated.
As soon as he had left we both came down from aloft and went to the cabin, which we found locked. We sent for Warspite the steward, who said that on coming into the cabin to ask if Mr. Pentlea required anything before going on shore, he was told to go forward and mind his own business.
Willie and I were very much puzzled what to do, for evidently Mr. Pentlea had taken the key of the cabin with him, and wherever he was going he certainly was not going to see our father. In our dilemma, we called Jack Adams and Sam Peters to advise with us, and after some consideration we determined that I should go over the stern in a bowline, and through the stern-posts take a survey of the cabin. I could see, when I looked in, that all the doors of the berths were fastened, but that evidently the lockers round the stern had been overhauled and ransacked.
I tried to get in through a stern-port, but found that I was too big to manage it, and called to Willie to have me hauled up again; and when I was on the poop, I reported the results of my examination. We now thought that the best thing to do would be to break open the cabin door; and Sentall the carpenter bringing his tools, we soon effected an entrance, and found a scene of confusion which far surpassed what I had expected from my glimpse through the port.
All the drawers and lockers had been opened, and their contents were strown in all directions, and a chest in which my father kept his money and the ship’s papers had been emptied of its contents.