that yew won’t be able to do all yew want in one day, for there’s a lot of black folk to deal with, and I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry. Yew take my advice, cyaptain; do it well while yew’re about it, and yew won’t repent.”
“Never fear, sir,” said the captain sternly. “I shall do my work thoroughly. Now then, back into your lugger and show us the way. Mr Munday, take the second cutter and follow this American gentleman’s lead, and then stay alongside his boat while Mr Anderson comes back to report to me in the first cutter. You both have your instructions. Yes, Mr Roberts – Yes, Mr Murray,” continued the captain, in response to a couple of appealing looks; “you can accompany the two armed boats.”
Chapter Six.
Into the Mist
Murray thought that the American screwed up his eyes in a peculiar way when he found that the two boats were to go in advance of the sloop, but he had no opportunity for telling Roberts what he believed he had seen, while so busy a time followed and his attention was so much taken up that it was not till long afterwards that he recalled what he had noted.
The American, upon rejoining his lugger, sailed away at once with the two boats in close attendance and the sloop right behind, their pilot keeping along the dingy mangrove-covered shore and about half-a-mile distant, where no opening seemed visible; and so blank was the outlook that the first lieutenant had turned to his young companion to say in an angry whisper —
“I don’t like this at all, Mr Murray.” But the words were no sooner out of his mouth than to the surprise of both there was a sudden pressure upon the lugger’s tiller, the little vessel swung round, and her cut-water pointed at once for the densely wooded shore, so that she glided along in a course diagonal to that which she had been pursuing.
“Why, what game is he playing now?” muttered the lieutenant. “There is no opening here. Yes, there is,” he added, the next minute. “No wonder we passed it by. How curious! Ah, here comes the moon.”
For as the great orb slowly rose and sent her horizontal rays over the sea in a wide path of light, she lit-up what at first sight seemed to be a narrow opening in the mangrove forest, but which rapidly spread out wider and wider, till as the three boats glided gently along, their sails well filled by the soft sea breeze, Murray gazed back, to see that the sloop was now following into what proved to be a wide estuary, shut off from seaward by what appeared now in the moonlight a long narrow strip of mangrove-covered shore.
“River,” said the lieutenant decisively, “and a big one too. Now, Tom May, steady with the lead.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried the man, and he began to take soundings, one of the sailors in the second cutter receiving his orders and beginning to follow the example set.
Then there was a hail from the lugger.
“What game do you call this?”
“Soundings,” replied the lieutenant gruffly.
“Twenty fathom for miles up, and you can go close inshore if you like. It’s all alike.”
“P’raps so,” said the officer, “but my orders are to sound.”
“Sound away, then,” said the American sourly; “but do you want to be a week?” And he relapsed into silence, till about a couple of miles of the course of the wide river had been covered, sounding after sounding being taken, which proved the perfect truth of the American’s words.
Then the two cutters closed up and there was a brief order given by the first lieutenant, which resulted in the second cutter beginning to make its way back to where the sloop lay in the mouth of the estuary.
“What yer doing now?” came from the lugger.
“Sending word to the sloop that there’s plenty of water and that she may come on.”
“Course she may, mister,” grumbled the American. “Think I would ha’ telled yew if it hedn’t been all right? Yew Englishers are queer fish!”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant quietly. “We like to feel our way cautiously in strange waters.”
“Then I s’pose we may anchor now till your skipper comes? All right, then, on’y you’re not going to get up alongside of the schooner this side of to-morrow morning, I tell yew.”
“Very well, then, we must take the other side of her the next morning.”
The American issued an order of his own in a sulky tone of voice, lowering his sails; and then there was a splash as a grapnel was dropped over the side.
“Hadn’t yew better anchor?” he shouted good-humouredly now. “If yew don’t yew’ll go drifting backward pretty fast.”
For answer the lieutenant gave the order to lower the grapnel, and following the light splash and the running out of the line came the announcement of the sailor in charge as he checked the falling rope —
“No bottom here.”
“Takes a tidy long line here, mister,” came in the American’s sneering voice. “Guess your sloop’s keel won’t touch no bottom when she comes up.”
The lieutenant made no reply save by hoisting sail again and running to and fro around and about the anchored lugger, so as to pass the time in taking soundings, all of which went to prove that the river flowed sluggishly seaward with so little variation in the depth that the soundings were perfectly unnecessary.
It was tedious work, and a couple of hours passed before, pale and spirit-like at first, the other cutter came into sight in the pale moonlight, followed by the sloop, when the American had the lugger’s grapnel hauled up and ran his boat alongside of the first cutter.
“Look here,” he said angrily, “yewr skipper’s just making a fool of me, and I may as well run ashore to my plantation, for we shan’t do no good to-night.”
The man’s words were repeated when the sloop came up, and a short discussion followed, which resulted in the captain changing his orders.
“The man’s honest enough, Anderson,” he said, “and I must trust him.”
“What do you mean to do, then, sir?” said the first lieutenant, in a low tone.
“Let him pilot us to where the slaver lies.”
“With the lead going all the time, sir?”
“Of course, Mr Anderson,” said the captain shortly. “Do you think me mad?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied the chief officer. “Perhaps it will be best.”
It proved to be best so far as the American’s temper was concerned, for upon hearing the captain’s decision, he took his place at the tiller of his lugger and led the way up the great river, followed by the stately sloop, whose lead as it was lowered from time to time told the same unvarying tale of deep water with a muddy bottom, while as the river’s winding course altered slightly, the width as far as it could be made out by the night glasses gave at least a couple of miles to the shore on either hand.
From time to time the first cutter, in obedience to the captain’s orders, ran forward from where she was sailing astern – the second cutter swinging now from the davits – crept up alongside of the lugger, and communicated
