CHAPTER XX
OUT OF LUCK
Hugh and Watkins unlashed two heavy oars from the cabin roof and thrust them outboard through oarlocks rivetted to the cockpit railing. Side by side, in unison, they pulled with a long, deliberate stroke, while Betty steered. It was no easy task to move that launch across the swift-flowing tide of the Bosphorus, and it seemed an endless time before the blurred mass of the shoreline, becoming visible to our unaided sight, furnished an index to the progress we were making.
"Nikka and I can relieve them," I offered as the rowers began to pant.
"You haven't done it before," answered Betty shortly. "You might splash."
Indeed, the oars made scarcely a ripple as they were lifted, feathered and dipped, tedious as was the effort imposed both by their weight and the size of the launch.
"Much farther?" Hugh gritted between clenched teeth.
"The jetty is right ahead," Betty reassured him. "You had better get forward, Dad, and be ready to fend off the rocks."
Vernon King climbed up on the cabin roof and crawled into the bow. Nikka and I strained our eyes endeavoring to identify the details of the shore. To the right, and already a little astern of us, was a huge round tower, one of the bulwarks of the ancient walls. Other than this there was only a dim range of masonry, the city walls, for the most part, crowned by houses. Not a light showed opposite to us.
Presently, letting our eyes drop lower, we descried immediately in front a low breakwater, a jagged pile of rocks that ran out from the shore in the form of a blunted hook. Betty, steering carefully, brought the Curlew inside the hook and bow-on to the shore, so that the launch was protected from the current that flowed through the Strait. King scrambled ashore and made fast a line around one of the rocks, then felt his way back along the slippery footing of the breakwater and stepped into the cockpit. Hugh and Watkins unshipped the sweeps and laid them on the cabin roof.
All of us were staring at the blank darkness of the shoreline, tense and watchful; but my uncle's interest was still largely of an antiquarian nature.