Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/236

 I am confident that that box contained my plum preserves!"

"It has been stolen!" cried Cleggett, with conviction. "Fool that I was, not to have taken it into the cabin!"

"But, if you had, you know," said Lady Agatha, "one would scarcely have cared to stay in there with it."

"Loge has outgeneraled me," murmured Cleggett, well-nigh frantic with self-reproach. "While he made the attack in front, he sent some of his men to the rear of the vessel and it was quietly made off with while we were fighting." Had the disappearance of the box concerned himself alone Cleggett's sense of disaster might have been less poignant. But the thought that his own carelessness had enabled the enemy to get possession of a thing likely to involve Lady Agatha in further trouble was nearly insupportable. He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands in impotent rage.

"No doubt Loge caught sight of it during the early part of the skirmish, by a flash of lightning," said Dr. Farnsworth, "and acted as you suggest, Mr. Cleggett. But does he believe it to be the box which