‘No longer …’ May felt as if her stomach had turned inside out. ‘You mean …’

‘I mean he has absconded.’

‘Ab … what?’

‘Run away. He disappeared some days ago.’

‘Where has he gone?’ Even as she asked the question she knew it was stupid.

‘If we knew that,’ the governor said testily, ‘he would be back here by now, doing penance for his ingratitude.’ He looked away and shifted some papers on his desk. ‘We have searched, and made extensive enquiries. No one seems to have seen the boy.’

‘When?’ May asked. ‘When did he go?’

The governor shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘October 8th. Now, I am extremely busy so …’

‘But what happens now?’ May asked desperately. ‘What can I do?’

‘Do? Nothing. There is nothing to be done. He may turn up, in due course, or he may not. That will be all. Good day.’

The porter opened the door. ‘This way, miss.’

Numbly, May followed him out and before she could order her thoughts she found herself back on the street. She stood still, looking back at the closed gates of the school. It looked more like a prison than a castle, now. She turned and began to plod back the way she had come. The governor’s words went round and round in her head. ‘He may turn up … or he may not. There’s nothing to be done.’

Six

Gus crouched behind a pile of crates and peered along the dock road. Escaping from the school had not been difficult. He had waited several days, to allow the wounds inflicted by his beating to heal, but all the time he had been planning to get away. The nights were longer and darker and one evening he had made the decision to try his luck. To his amazement and delight he found that the window he and Will had used was still unfastened and the fence had not been repaired. A spring and a scramble and he was free, scarcely able to believe how easy it had been. It had taken him all night to walk from the school to the docks and now dawn was breaking and there was only one thought in his mind. He must find a ship that was ready to sail and get on board before the authorities caught up with him.

A plume of smoke from beyond one of the dockyard gates caught his attention. Captain Thomas had been dismissive of the newfangled steam ships, declaring them to be a flash in the pan that could never replace sail, but he had said enough for Gus to understand that the smoke meant that a ship had fired up its furnaces to get up steam ready for departure. That this was imminent was born out by the activity around the gate.