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"Oh, no, he wouldn't go to sleep," said the gunner. "He's close here somewhere. I hope he's had better luck than we, for I ar'n't found nothing; have you?" "No, no," arose on all sides. "Why, there ain't nothin' to find," growled Tom Tully. "I wish I was aboard. You're chief orsifer when he ar'n't here, Billy Waters. Give the order and let's go back."
"Well, what I want to know is, what we're a-going for ashore?" "Now just hark at him," cried the gunner, "grumbling again. Why, ar'n't we going to look after our young orsifer?" "Then why didn't we come in the daytime, and not wait until it was getting so pitch dark as you can't see your hand afore your eyes?" Billy Waters scratched his head.
"Lookye here," said Billy Waters the day after Hilary's disappearance, "I hope, my lads, I'm as straightforrard a chap as a man can be, and as free from mut'nous idees; but what I want to know is this: why don't we go ashore and have another sarch for our young orsifer?" "That's just what I says," exclaimed Tom Tully. "No, you don't, Thomas," cried the gunner sharply.
"Then you ain't going till you've found your orsifer, my lad." "Hah!" said Tom Tully, oracularly. "Shouldn't wonder if he ar'n't desarted 'cause the skipper give him such a setting down this morning." "Now just hark at this here chap," cried the gunner, appealing to the others. "He'd just go and do such a dirty thing hisself, and so he thinks every one else would do the same.
He'd been keeping me off while his mates was whipped up, and then, when his turn came, up he goes like a bag o' biscuit into a warehouse door at Portsmouth, and I'll lay a tot o' grog that's what's become of our young orsifer." "Hark at him!" cried Tom Tully, giving his head a sidewise wag.
"Think just the same as Billy Waters, your honour," said the boatswain. "And that 'ere's just the same with me," growled Tom Tully, kicking out a leg behind. "He's a won'ful smart orsifer Muster Leigh is, your honour; and that's so." "Silence, sir! How dare you speak like that?" cried the lieutenant furiously.
"I think it were 'bout here," said Tom Tully; "but I can't find that there track o' the boat's keel now. What's going to be done?" "Let's go aboard again," growled Tom Tully. "I'm 'bout sick o' this here, mates." "But I tell yer we can't go aboard without our orsifer," cried the gunner. "'Taint likely." "He'd go aboard without one of us," growled Tom Tully, "so where's the difference?"
There was a long pause now, during which the weary men sat apart upon the sands, or with their backs propped against the sides of the damaged boat, but at last there came a hail out of the darkness, to which Tom Tully answered with a stentorian "Boat a-hoy-oy!" "Who told you to hail, Tom Tully?" cried the gunner. "I'm chief orsifer here, so just you wait until you are told."
"Ah!" said Chips, "we shall never get all our prize-money spent, boys." "No," said the corporal of marines, "never. I say, speaking as a orsifer, oughtn't we to have another one in place of Master Leigh?" "No," said Tom Tully. "We couldn't get another like he." "That's a true word, Tommy," said Billy Waters, who did not often agree with the big sailor. "We couldn't get another now he's lost."
"You did nothing but grumble and growl all the blessed time we was ashore, and say as our young orsifer had cut on some games or another. I put it to you, lads; now didn't he?" "That's a true word," said one of the men, and several others agreed.
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