The men cheered and pulled, sending the boat merrily along now, for the tide was close upon its highest point, and for some little time it grew more and more sluggish before the coxswain cried out—
“She’s swung round, sir; tide’s with us.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr Brooke. “Then we shall get to the Teaser in time. They couldn’t start from the creek with those light junks till now.”
“How much farther is it, sir?” I said, as he stood up and shaded his eyes with his hand.
“It can’t be many hundred yards,” he replied. “It must be just beyond that head where the boats lie so thick. Yes, off that temple there up on the hill.”
The men gave a cheer, and the boat sped on fast now, feeling the push given by the falling tide, and the short distance that lay between us; and the spot where we had lain at anchor so many days was soon traversed—the latter part in perfect silence, with Mr Brooke standing in the stern-sheets gazing straight ahead, and turning his eyes from side to side of the busy water thoroughfare.
“She has shifted her moorings,” he said at last.
“Has she, sir?” I replied, as I recalled how the furnace fires were going and the Teaser was getting up steam when we started.
“Yes; how tiresome!” he muttered. “Just, too, when we want to communicate at once.”
“But you can see her, sir?”