Leaving Dick in charge of her, Charlie and I proceeded on foot in search of the missionaries’ houses. The walk was a much longer one than we had expected, but we at last found them, and were courteously received. They expressed themselves very grateful for the attention Harry had shown them, and immediately set to work to write letters, while their wives prepared some refreshments for us. They also insisted upon sending some down to the boat. We in the mean time walked out to a spot whence we expected to see the schooner, but when we got there, great was our dismay at not being able to discover her. A dark cloud, sending down a deluge of rain, was sweeping over the ocean, driven evidently by a heavy squall.
“We shall see her when it has passed over,” observed Charlie; “for she will then stand back should she have been driven away from the land.”
“I trust so,” I said. “Harry is always cautious, and would have shortened sail in time; otherwise the squall has strength enough to capsize her or whip the masts overboard.”
“You should not allow such a fancy to enter your head,” he observed, wishing to comfort me, as I felt fearfully anxious.
We kept watching the spot where the schooner ought to have been, entirely forgetting the repast prepared for us. The cloud seemed to increase in size, the rain grew thicker and thicker.
“If the schooner is still afloat, she must be in the very midst of it,” I at length observed, with a groan.
“Of course she is,” said Charlie, “and running before it. She could not possibly beat back in the teeth of such a squall. We shall see her when it has passed.”
When we looked back landward, we saw, however, that the sun was already sinking below the tree-crowned heights, and in that latitude darkness comes on almost immediately after the sun has gone down. Still, we could not tear ourselves from the spot.
We were standing thus when we heard a voice saying, “I have been searching for you, my friends, for a long time, and could not conceive where you had gone.”
Charlie explained the cause of our anxiety, for I was too much agitated to speak.