"Ahoy!" a voice came back. "Who's that?"
"Two officers waiting to come aboard. Have you got that native there yet?" asked Geoff, as an oar splashed in the water and the boat was rowed in close to the bank of the river.
"Aboard this hour or more," came the hearty answer. "Easy does it, now, or you'll be capsizing us! There we are, two officers aboard, and all ready!"
"Push her off, Cox; let her go!"
There was a sound of machinery and the clack of valves as the engine was set going; then the tiny motor-boat trembled as the propeller rotated. A moment later she was stealing out across the river, still hidden in the darkness, and, having traversed a long stretch of water, approached the opposite bank, where the marshes empty themselves into the river. The daylight was just coming, and for a while they lay to, so that the native guide could be sure of their position. Then a sharp order was given, the propeller thrashed the water again, and in a little while they were threading their way amidst a mass of reeds and islands of oozing mud, which formed the eastern boundary of the marshes. In less than five minutes they were entirely lost to view, and were launched on an expedition which was to prove as interesting as it was exciting.
CHAPTER VI
An Exploring-party
"And now, supposing we lay to a little and think about some breakfast? Not a bad idea that, eh?" exclaimed a cheery individual, upon whose brawny figure Geoff's eyes had many a time been fixed during the half-hour or more which had elapsed since the motor-boat had stolen so silently and secretly from the main channel of the Shatt-el-Arab into the wastes bordering the River Euphrates, and who seemed to be in command of the expedition.
He was a moderately tall, broad-shouldered, heavily-built, red-faced, and exceedingly—not to say delightfully—healthy-looking specimen of sailor humanity. His thin khaki-twill garments hung loosely about him—for if young subalterns, like Philip and Geoff, must needs have their clothes for active service cut almost as smartly as for residence in London, there were others, older than they—wiser, let us dare to venture—who, with much experience behind them, preferred comfort to elegance, and ease to any degree of smartness. Underneath the helmet which clothed the head of this naval officer was a broad and very rubicund face—as we have already mentioned—a strong, open, and peculiarly prepossessing figure-head, which was seamed and lined, partly by the action of the sun, but more by the almost constant smiles of the owner.