, laying a strong palm over one of her
trembling hands. "And you, sir, take my thanks; go you home, and leave
the search to me."

CHAPTER XXVII

ENTER THE COMMISSIONER

It was noon, and in the Court House all the Councillors rose as the
Commandant entered and took his seat.

In the fewest possible words he opened the business, and leaned back in
his chair of state, waiting for the talk to begin. He scarcely knew
what he had said, and yet he had spoken well. With his restored
authority had come back the old easy habit of it.

At such a moment the Councillors would not have allowed, even to
themselves, that they breathed more easily and fell to business almost
with a sigh of relief, under the presidency of their old chairman. Yet
so it was. The Lord Proprietor had been autocratic in council,
impatient of opinions that crossed his own, apt to treat discussion as
a tedious preliminary to enforcing his will.

After five years, then, the Councillors enjoyed, without confessing it,
a sense of liberty regained; and it was the more to the Commandant's
credit that in spite of it he kept a firm rein on the debate, cutting
short all prolixities of speculation, and briefly ruling Mr. Pope's
theory of foul play to be, for the present, out of order. They were
met, he reminded them, for two practical purposes; in the first place,
to organise a thorough search for the Lord Proprietor, and, secondly,
to determine, as briefly as possible, how the government of the Islands
should be continued and carried on during his absence. He would take
these two questions only.

Mr. Rogers attended, and was cross-examined at length. With a chart
before him, and with the help of Reuben Hicks, the St. Ann's pilot, he
traced and described the currents to the northward of Inniscaw, the
Chairman meanwhile, with pencil and paper, assigning the search-parties
to the various rocks and groups of islets in or around which it was
deemed possible for a floating body to be carried--so many boats to
North Island, so many to seek along Brefar to W. and S. W. of
Merryman's Head, so many to explore the difficult passage between the
Outer Dogs. A sheet of foolscap had been pinned on the outside of the
Court House door inviting volunteers; and while the Councillors
deliberated they could hear the murmur of the crowd surrounding the
notice and the scratching of pencils as one man after another painfully
wrote his name. At intervals--time being precious--