“And are we going to follow them, sir?” I said softly.
“Yes, my lad; our work has only just begun.”
Chapter Thirty Nine.
Tricked.
They were singularly quiet, these people on board the junks, I suppose from old experience teaching them that noise made might mean at one time discovery and death, at another the alarming of some valuable intended prize.
This quietness was remarkable, for as we listened there was the creaking and straining of the rough capstan used, but no shouted orders, no singing in chorus by the men tugging at the bars; all was grim silence and darkness, while we lay-to there, waiting and listening to the various faint sounds, till we heard the rattling of the reed-sails as they were hauled up. Then we knew that the junks were off, for there came to us that peculiar flapping, rattling sound made by the waves against a vessel’s planks, and this was particularly loud in the case of a roughly-built Chinese junk.
“Are you going to follow them at once?” I said in a whisper.
“Yes, till within an hour of daylight,” was the reply. “Now, be silent.”