le."

"Except find him, sir. This comes of setting a boy like you to take
charge of the prisoner. Well, it was the captain's choice, not mine.
I'll be bound to say that if Mr Roberts had been sent upon this duty he
would have had a very different tale to tell."

Murray shivered in his misery, and tried to master the desire to glance
at his brother middy, but failed, and saw that Roberts was beginning to
swell with importance.

"Well, Mr Murray," continued the lieutenant, after pausing for a few
moments, after giving his subordinate this unkindly stab and, so to
speak, beginning to wriggle his verbal weapon in the wound, "it is you
who have to meet the captain when you go back after being relieved, not
I. That I am thankful to say. But I fail to see, Mr Roberts, what is
the good of setting you on duty with a fresh set of men to guard the
prisoner, when there is no prisoner to guard. Here, show me where you
bestowed the scoundrel."

Murray led the way into the cottage, with his heart beating heavily with
misery; the lieutenant followed him in silence; and Roberts came last,
glancing at Murray the while and with his lips moving in silence as if
he were saying, "I say, you've done it now!"

"Absurd!" cried the lieutenant, a few minutes later, and after looking
through the room where the planter had lain down. "You might have been
sure that the prisoner would escape. Then you did nothing to guard
him?"

"Yes, I did, sir," cried the lad desperately. "I posted men all round
the cottage."

"And a deal of good that was! Anything else?"

"I have been examining the place all about, sir, with Tom May and the
two boat-keepers."

"Well, and what was the result?"

"Only that I found one of the hiding-places of this maze of a place,
sir."

"With the prisoner safe within it?"

"No, sir; I only found the planter's boat and crew, sir."

"Of course--just come back after helping their master to escape. And of
course they denied it?"

"The black coxswain was as much surprised as I was, sir," said Murray.

"Of course he was, Mr Murray; perfectly astounded. Bah, man! How can
you be so innocent! Well, I suppose I must try and get you out of this
horrible scrape, for all our sakes. Which is the coxswain? That black
fellow who has been staring at us all the time I have been listening to
your lame excuses?"

"Yes, sir; and I have been thinking that he would be a valuable help to
us in guiding us through the maz