Chapter Twenty Six.
A Fight in the Dark.
It was sooner than they expected that the darkness came on—thick, black, dense darkness, which in spite of its gradual approach seemed strange and full of suggestions of being peopled with enemies ready to draw trigger on the banks and send lightning-like flashes at the occupants of the boat—flashes each of which might be a messenger of death.
The boat was set in motion and glided down stream slowly, with Murray in the bows peering straight before him, trying to pierce the darkness; Tom May right astern with one oar dipped, with which he kept the boat level; while the others sat with oars balanced ready for use in case of attack, and so as to ensure retreat.
In this fashion they floated down, carried along by the gentle current, not a word being spoken, and the midshipman hardly daring to breathe as he listened to the strange nocturnal sounds which came from the banks on either side—weird croakings, pipings, and strange trumpeting notes which sounded like a challenge to the strangers who were daring to penetrate the thick darkness of the night.
More than once there was a sudden motion, a heaving and a rising wave as of some huge fish or reptile which had been disturbed from its slumbers, and from which attack was expected at any moment.
It was a strange ride, with the black water whispering by the boat’s side, while the men as they listened hardly seemed to breathe.
Murray had laid down his plan of action to the men before starting, and that was to plunge oars and back-water with all their might to get out of the sphere of danger, for to press on in the darkness seemed too great a risk to run. But for quite two hours nothing occurred that could be attributed to the agency of man, and the midshipman, who had begun to grow used to the cries, croaks and movements of bird and reptile, felt his spirits begin to rise, his heart to swell with hope of reaching the mouth of the river unmolested, where he felt sure that another boat would be awaiting them, and then and there he would at last be able to perform his long-delayed mission.
“I’ve done wrong,” he said to himself, “and alarmed myself without reason. There have been no enemies waiting for us. They have settled in their own minds that we should not venture to come down the river in the darkness, and we might very well have had the oars out and come quickly.”
He had no sooner thought this than he mentally retracted his notion as being so much folly, feeling as he did that it would have been impossible to steer, and that in all probability they would have been aground—perhaps wedged in amongst the trees or shrubs of the bank.