. "I can't do
that. Of course I am under your orders, for this expedition; but this
is not an affair in which I consider that I am bound to obey you. This
concerns the honour of the officers of my ship, and I should not be
doing my duty if I did not, upon my return, place this letter in the
hands of the captain. A man who would betray the general's plans to the
enemy, would betray the ship, and I should be a traitor, myself, if I
did not inform the captain. I am sorry, awfully sorry, that this should
happen to an officer of the Sutherland, but it will be for the captain
to decide whether he will make it public or not.

"There is one thing. If it was to be anyone, I would rather that it was
he than anyone else, for there isn't a man on board can abide him. No,
sir, I am sorry, but I cannot give up the letter, and, even if you had
torn it up when you had it in your hand just now, I should have
reported the whole thing to the captain, and say I could swear to the
handwriting."

James was silent. The boy was right, and was only doing his duty in
determining to denounce the act of gross treachery which had been
perpetrated. He was deeply grieved, however, to think of the
consequences of the discovery, and especially of the blow that it would
be, to the squire, to hear that his nephew was a traitor, and indeed a
murderer at heart, for, had not his flight taken place before the
discovery was made, he would certainly have been executed as a spy.

The day passed quietly. That the Indians were searching for him, far
and wide, James Walsham had no doubt, and indeed, from their hiding
place he saw several parties of redskins moving along on the river
bank, carefully examining the ground.

"It's lucky we didn't move along there," he said to his companion, "for
the ground is so soft that they would assuredly have found our tracks.
I expect that they think it possible that we may have been taken off,
in a boat, during the night."

"I hope they will keep on thinking so," the midshipman said. "Then they
will give up looking for us."

"They won't do that," James replied; "for they will be sure that they
must have seen our tracks, had we passed along that muddy bank.
Fortunately, they have no clue to where we really are. We might have
gone east, west, or north, and the country is so covered with bush that
anything like a regular search is absolutely impossible."

"I hope we ain't going to be very long, before we get on board again