The first thing I noticed was that one of them lay a little over to port, as if from being too heavily laden on one side; while, as I gazed, the other was evidently settling in the other direction.
I wondered what they were doing to them, and whether it meant changing heavy guns over to one side, when I grasped the fact,—they had gone as high up-stream as they could, and then run aground, and were fixed in the sticky mud of which the bottom of the river was composed.
“Ahoy! there aloft,” shouted Mr Reardon. “What do you make out?”
I did not take the glass from my eye, but shouted down to him—
“Both junks fast aground, sir. Chinese crews running backwards and forwards, trying to work them off, sir.”
An eager conversation ensued between Mr Reardon and the captain, during which I carefully scanned the two Chinese vessels, and could see the men swarming here and there, as if in an intense state of agitation, but they soon ceased trying to rock the junks, and, as I judged, they were waiting for the tide to rise higher and float them off.
There was nothing between to hinder my having a thoroughly good view of where they lay, just round a slight bend, but I felt certain that they could not see our boats, and I had proof that this was the case, on noticing that a group of men had landed, and were running towards a clump of tall trees, where they disappeared amongst the growth.
“Cowards!” I said to myself, for I felt that they were deserters, and, after watching for their reappearance, I was about to turn the glass upon the junks again, when I noticed a peculiar agitation of the branches of one tree, which stood up far above the others.
“Well, Mr Herrick, I am waiting for your reports,” cried the first lieutenant.
“Yes, sir,” I shouted. “Half-a-dozen men landed from one of the junks, and ran across to a patch of wood.”