Vandersee finished his task and coiled up the new lead line. He stepped over to Barry and with respectful confidence said:
"If you know the channel, sir, I'll get into the chains with the lead myself. There's a bad shoal patch this side of the bar, and with the water slicking over it to the out-draw of that eddy, it looks like deep water."
"All right, Mr. Vandersee—Oh, thunder!" Barry flung out the expression in petulance. "Why, you were sent aboard because you know this river, weren't you? I forgot."
"Yes, sir," smiled Vandersee. "I'm fairly well acquainted here. Shall I take her in?"
"Yes. Take the wheel and sing out your directions. Where had we better anchor? Can't go right up, I suppose?"
"Tide's right, sir, and with this breeze, if we manage to avoid swinging across stream in making past the bar, we can carry our draft two miles up, anyway. If we have to bring up before that, there's a snug creek—there, see?—fifty fathom to the eastward of those trees—where we can lie moored fore and aft to the shore."
Barry took up a position at the fore end of the poop, scanning the narrow entrance a trifle anxiously. He had no desire to cast his new command away in making her first port. But Vandersee undoubtedly knew his business. The Barang, for all her slowness, answered to the master touch on her helm and edged surely up for the deep water until the slop of the bar bore well abeam.
For a moment the skipper held his breath as she lurched heavily to the suck of the current. He saw that smooth, flowing patch of oily water, which the second mate had said was in reality a real shoal, draw steadily astern; and he brightened at thought of the danger overcome. Then out of a clear sky came the unforeseen.
From the forecastle head sounded the crash and rattle of chain and a resounding splash. The roar of cable followed, amid a volley of thumping deep-sea oaths from Rolfe directed at the devoted head of Little; and the Barang snubbed up with a jerk, her stern swinging swiftly around towards the bar.