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nx indian ASIA'S NO. 1 BAKER CHANNEL Croaker, mincing in and out among the rag-weeds, led straight across the yard to a tiny ramshackle building which at one time might have been a root-house. Billy, feeling that at any moment an icy hand might reach out and grip his windpipe, followed. It was a terrible risk he was running but the prize was worth it. His feet seemed weighted with lead. At last he reached the root-house and leaned against it, dizzy and panting. Then he looked about for Croaker. The crow had vanished!,An hour passed from the time the message was sent before Captain Weaver arrived. Captain Acton desired to see the skipper alone, out of delicacy to Sir William, of whose son it would be impossible to speak without causing the poor old gentleman distress more or less acute. The Admiral found out Captain Acton's well-bred and considerate wish in the one or two hints he dropped, but stuck manfully to his chair nevertheless, and when Captain Weaver was announced, he still remained one of the three occupants of the room.,Captain Weaver had been sent on board the Minorca to take charge of her; Mr Eagle remained as the barque's first mate, and Captain Acton himself navigated the Aurora to the English Channel. He had overhauled Mr Lawrence's cabin in the Minorca and found the "Secret Instructions" he was supposed to have written, and this paper he would have shown to Sir William Lawrence but for the circumstance of the envelope being sealed with the Acton crest, which signified that Mr Lawrence had taken an opportunity of borrowing a large silver seal which stood upon the library table in Old Harbour House, and replacing it, after using it for a nefarious purpose: Captain Acton[Pg 451] had himself used that seal the day before he followed in pursuit in the Aurora.,"Not in the Harbour!" cried Miss Acton. "Good gracious, has she sunk, do you think?",The old doctor sighed dolefully. "Well, my glasses are gone," he murmured. "And how I will ever do without 'em, I don't know." Then, becoming suddenly aware of his ridiculous position, he stepped ponderously down from the table to his chair.，Captain Acton with a violent effort had by this time recollected himself.，"Where do you dine, Walter?"，"Very well, Walter, you may go home and get a pail of water. My experience with school wells," glancing out of the window to the blue pump, "has been that during the holidays they become a veritable death trap for frogs, mice and other vermin."Billy tried further inducements. "I'll give you my new red tie an' celluloid collar," he offered.

For answer she threw herself down upon the deck. She fell as though in a swoon, and lay motionless with her face buried once more in her arm that now reposed upon the carpeted planks. Her tears or sobs assured him that she had not fainted, and understanding that his wisest policy would be to leave her to her thoughts, he cast an adoring look upon the prostrate figure and quitted the cabin, slamming the door noisily after him that she might know he was gone, but silently turning the key outside, for it was not then his intention that she should go on deck and meet the crew until the statement he had made to Mr Eagle had passed in growling whispers through the men.,"Yes," said Mr Lawrence, running his eyes over him, "the articles are opened at Mr Acton's offices. Go and tell the manager—but here——" He pulled out a card upon whose face was some printed address, and with a pencil struck out the address, and wrote to the effect that the bearer called Paul had been engaged by Mr Lawrence as his cabin servant. These lines he initialed, and giving the card to the youth, bade him present it at the offices before one o'clock, or he would find them closed.,Anson, striving to keep his head above a shiny collar, about which was twisted a flaming red tie, was just issuing from the stairs. His mother opened her hand to display her gold piece, then closed it again. "You go right back upstairs and take off Willium's collar and tie," she commanded.,"No, I'm willin' to shake." Scroggie extended his hand.,A brown water-spaniel waddled from the woodshed into the room, four bright-eyed puppies at her heels, and stood half in the glow, half in the shadow, short tail ingratiatingly awag.,"Wasn't she reported from the masthead?",Finally he seemed satisfied that he was alone. His harsh notes became soft guttural cooes. He nodded his big head up and down in grave satisfaction, tip-toeing from one end of the ridge-pole to the other and chuckling softly to himself. Then suddenly, he vanished from sight.,For half an hour they groped their way forward, no further words passing between them. The heavy roar of the rain on the tree tops made conversation next to impossible. The darkness was so dense they were forced to proceed slowly and pause for breath after bumping violently against a tree or sapling. They had been striving for what seemed to both to be a long, long time to find the clearing when Billy paused in his tracks and spoke: "It's no use, Maurice. We're lost.","Yes," he answered. "I told him that same day. Told him that you said you could never be more to him than what you now are. Why do you ask, Erie?","I am sorry to say," said the Admiral, sinking into a chair, "that I have brought no news.",Mr. Keeler looked surprised; so did Billy's class-mates; so did all members of all the classes and the teachers. So did Billy himself. The drowsy hum of reciting voices died suddenly and a great stillness succeeded it. It seemed to Billy that he was standing alone on top of a flimsy scaffold, hundreds of feet in the air, waiting for Mr. Keeler, high executioner, to spring the trap-door that would launch him into oblivion.,"Oh yes, he has the makings of a fine fellow in him," exclaimed the Admiral, with his face clouding somewhat. "It is not for me to say so, but there was a time when I was proud of my son. Such was his zeal and gallantry in the Service that I sometimes flattered myself the day would come when, like Lord Nelson, he would have a gazette to himself. His opportunities in the Navy are passed. Even if he could be reinstated I doubt if he would return, so lively, unnaturally lively, is the resentment and aversion which the sentence of the court-martial excited in him. It is a pity—it is a pity!".