Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/308

 Information of the robbery was given, and inquiries instituted without delay, but without avail. Indeed the chief officer held out little hope of ultimate success; nevertheless, Slagg endeavoured to buoy up his friend with assurances that they must surely get hold of the thief in the long-run.

"And if we don't," he said to Robin and Sam, during a private conversation on the subject that same night, "we must just give him each a portion of what we have, for the poor stoopid has shared our trials, and ought to share our luck."

While Stumps was being thus fleeced in the lower part of the city, Robin and Sam had gone to make inquiries about Mrs. Langley, and at the Government House they discovered a clerk who had formerly been at Sarawak, and had heard of the fire, the abduction of the little girl, and of Mrs. Langley having afterwards gone to Bombay; but he also told them, to their great regret, that she had left for England six months before their arrival, and he did not know her address, or even the part of England to which she had gone.

"But," continued the clerk, who was a very friendly fellow, "I 'll make inquiries, and let you know the result, if you leave me your address. Meanwhile you can amuse yourself by paying a visit to that wonderful ship, the Great Eastern, which has come to lay a submarine telegraph cable