ll wager there's
been a hue and cry and a sharp lookout all to-day. As long as the sea
don't prevent it, we shall have a boat sent here for us to-morrow, and
then a fine story you'll have to tell the folks at home, and the boys
at school next term, Master Sylvester!"

His last remark, though intended to cheer me up, had rather the
opposite effect. I must confess that, up to the present, I had been so
much concerned with my own personal safety as to give hardly a thought
to the friends at home, and to the anxiety which my father and mother
must be now feeling at my non-arrival; for by this time the news would
no doubt have reached them of the disappearance of the coach. In those
days there were no telegraph wires by means of which messages could be
sent and replies received in the course of at most a few hours. A
messenger had probably been dispatched on horseback to Round Green, to
learn whether I had travelled by the ill-fated True Blue; but he would
probably not return to Castlefield till late that night. And even now,
as I sat blinking at the glowing logs, my parents would be in a state
of anxious uncertainty as to whether I was really missing, or had been
detained for some reason at the school.

George did not notice my silence, but went on, following up his own
line of thought.

"I believe there's been a boat out to-day spying down the coast, and
'twas that the blind fellow heard when he talked about distant voices.
My stars! it gave me quite a turn for the minute. I almost thought it
was ghosts, and so did some of the rest, I suppose, by the scared look
on their faces. You didn't hear nothing, I suppose, did you, Master
Eden?"

"No," I replied. "But I hardly expected to; for I've got a bit of a
cold in my head, and it's made me rather deaf."

"It was a queer thing," murmured George. "That man had such sharp ears
I don't think 'twas fancy; and if not, then what could it have been, I
wonder?"

"The dog didn't seem to notice it," I answered, "and a dog can hear
better than a man. I dare say it was the water gurgling in some hole
or hollow, and it may have sounded like a voice."

How endless seemed that long December night! The cold did not appear
to be so intense, but I was less weary than on the previous evening,
and less inclined for sleep. Every now and again Woodley would raise
himself on his elbow to readjust the smouldering logs; and we would
speculate as to what could be the time, for the