He spoke truly. Higson made a leap into the boat, which shoved off just as the drogher, giving a slight roll, sank from sight. The crew pulled away from her.
“I could only find my own and two other fellows’ bags,” said Higson. “The others must have slipped down into the water.”
The boat at once returned to the schooner with the sad intelligence. Norris and the master’s-assistant were very glad to get back their carpet-bags. Their recovery, it is possible, somewhat consoled them for the loss of their young messmates. They, at all events, congratulated themselves that they had not been on board the drogher when she was blown away from Saba.
Jack, who loved his brother dearly, was very much grieved at his loss; so was Terence for Gerald, though he thought most of the sorrow his sister would suffer when she heard of her boy’s death.
“Arrah now; I wish that I’d let him stay at home and turn farmer; but then, to be sure, he might have been after breaking his neck out hunting, so it comes to the same thing in the end,” he exclaimed, with as near an approach to a sigh as he ever uttered. “Och, ahone, poor Nora, the sweet cratur! and I not able to bring her back the boy.”
Murray was less demonstrative, but he knew that young Archy would be truly mourned for in his distant highland home.
The schooner now commenced her long beat back to Antigua. There was every prospect of its being a tedious business; but there was a fresh breeze, and by carrying on, though the top-masts bent like willow-wands, English Harbour was gained at length. Captain Hemming felt the loss of his midshipmen; but when the matter was explained to him, he acquitted old Higson of all blame.
“Only I will never, as long as I command a ship, allow my midshipmen to go away for their amusement by themselves,” he observed. “They run risks enough as it is in the course of duty.”
This being reported in the berth made Norris and others very angry, and they were much inclined to abuse poor Tom and Gerald for getting drowned, and thus being the cause of the restriction likely to be placed on their liberty.
The two ships were now ready for sea. Murray went to pay a farewell visit to the Houghtons. Kind Mrs Houghton—who, for Stella’s sake as well as his own, took a warm interest in him, for she having keener eyes than the colonel, knew perfectly well that they were engaged—had letters of introduction ready to her daughter Mrs Raven, to the Bradshaws, Stella’s relatives, and to other friends.