“There’s another curve ahead,” Nann whispered. Somehow in that silent place they could not bring themselves to speak aloud.
“Seems to me the water is getting very shallow,” Dories observed. She was staring over one side of the boat watching for the slimy snakes Dick had told her made the marsh their feeding ground.
“H-m-m! I wonder!” Nann, with half closed eyes looked meditatively ahead.
“Wonder what?” her friend glanced up to inquire.
“I was thinking that perhaps we won’t be able to go much farther up this channel, since the tide is going out. The water in the marsh keeps getting lower and lower.”
“Gee-whiliker, Nann!” Dick looked alarmed. “I believe you’re right. I’ve been thinking for some seconds that the pushing was harder than it has been.”
They had reached a turn in the narrow channel as he spoke, but, when he tried to steer the punt into it, the flat-bottomed boat stopped with such suddenness that, had he not been leaning hard on the oar, he would surely have been thrown into the muddy water. As it was, he lost his balance and fell on the broad stern seat. Dories, too, had been thrown forward, while Gib leaped to the bow to look ahead and see what had obstructed their progress.
“Great fish-hooks! If we haven’t run aground,” was the result of his observation.
“Nann’s right. This here channel dries up with the tide goin’ out.”
“Then the only way to get to the old ruin is to come when the turning tide fills this channel in the marsh,” Dick put in.