"No," he said, smiling, "not a bit. There, Mayne, my lad, he has thrown
you over, but I can't. If you stay, I'll stay too."
"Mr Gunson!" I cried.
"Yes, my lad, and we'll see if he comes back."
"He will if he can, I'm sure," I cried. "Well, we shall see."
"I am sure he has got into some trouble; I am certain of it. Ah, here
he is!"
For the door opened at that moment, but it was not Esau, only the
landlady, who in broken German-English, told us that a message had
arrived from the captain to say we were to go on board.
"Thank you. _Gut_!" said Gunson, laconically. And then, as the woman
left the room, he continued, "Well, I'll take your view of it, my lad.
We'll say he has got into some trouble and cannot get back."
"Yes; I'm sure of it," I cried. "Very well, then, we must get him out
of it. Of course it is no use for us to waste time by going from house
to house. I'll go and see the chief man in the police, and see if they
can find him for us."
"Yes," I said, eagerly; "come on."
"No, no, you stay. He may, as you say, return, and you must be here to
meet him, or he may go off again, and matters be worse."
"He'd go to the schooner then."
"If the schooner had not sailed. You stop, and I hope he will turn up
hero."
Anxious as I was to go in search of Esau, I was obliged to obey, and I
was directly after left to myself to pass quite a couple of hours before
Gunson came back.
"No news yet," he said; "the police are trying what they can do, but if
he is in hiding they are not likely to succeed."
"Then he is not in prison?"
"Oh, no; as far as I can hear, nothing has been seen of him."
"I thought he might have got in some trouble, and been arrested. Then
those men must be at the bottom of it, Mr Gunson."
"Yes, I thought so, but what could I do? I told one of the chiefs of
the police that I was afraid he had been attacked, and the man looked
serious, and said `Very likely.' Then he asked me to describe the men,
and I did."
"Well?" I said eagerly.
"He told me that my description was like that of hundreds of scoundrels
about the place."
"Let's go and see if we can meet them anywhere about," I said. "They
were watching our hotel yesterday where we stayed."
"Yes, I know," said Gunson, thoughtfully. "It hardly seems likely. I
don't know, though, there are always men hanging about ports ready to do
anything for the sake of a few shillings, all the world over."
I felt a shiver run through me at his words, as my busy brain began to
suggest endless horrors that might have befallen poor Esau; and as I
followed Gunson out into the road, these thoughts grew and grew till I
found myself telling poor little Mrs Dean about the loss of her son,
and hearing her reproaches as she told me that it was all my fault, and
that if it had not been for me Esau would have stayed at home.
We went along the road, and down to the wharves, and to and fro about
the hotel where we had been staying, and there was no sign of either of
the men who had assailed us. There were, as the police had said, plenty
of a similar class, many of whom resembled them somewhat in appearance;
but our search was entirely in vain, while towards evening, as we came
out once more where we had a full view of the beautiful bay, I saw
something which made me start, and, full of misery and self-reproach, I
stopped and looked up at Gunson.
"Yes," he said, frowning heavily, "I see. There she goes, and with a
good wind too. Nice clean-sailing little vessel. We ought to have been
on board."
For there, a mile now from the shore, with her sails set, and looking
half-transparent in the light of the setting sun, was the
graceful-looking schooner, which I felt must be ours, heeling over
gently, and taking with her our few belongings.
"Pretty good waste of time as well as money, Gordon, my lad," said my
strange-looking companion, harshly. "But there, it is of no use to cry
over spilt milk. You could not go off and leave your mate in this way,
and I, as an Englishman, could not leave a fellow-countryman--I mean
boy--in trouble."
I tried to thank him, but suitable words would not come, and he clapped
me on the shoulder in a friendly way.
"There," he said, "come back to our friend the Frau. You are faint and
hungry, and so am I. She shall give us a good square meal, as they call
it out here, and then we shall be rested, and better able to think."
I was faint, certainly, but the idea of eating anything seemed to make
me feel heart-sick; but I said nothing, only followed my companion back
to the little hotel, feeling as if this was after all only some bad,
confused dream.