The men thrust the boat swiftly across the pondlike place, for on the other side the reeds seemed to have been lately disturbed; but here there was another disappointment, for though the bamboos which rose up had certainly been broken away recently, they grew together so densely that all efforts to pass through were vain, and Tom May declared at last that it was only another blind meant to deceive.
“Let’s try t’other side, sir,” he said, screwing up his face.
“No, no; that looks so easy,” said Murray.
“That’s some one’s artfulness, sir. Let’s try; it won’t take long.”
Murray was ready enough to try any advice now so long as it seemed good, and the word being given, the two boat-keepers placed their oars in the rowlocks and rowed straight at the indicated place, with the result that they had to unship their oars, for the boat glided right through the light reeds, which gave way readily here, and almost directly after the rowing was resumed again, and they found themselves in comparatively open water for a couple of hundred yards.
“This won’t want no marking, sir,” whispered Tom.
“Mark it all the same, my lad, when we pass out.”
“I will, sir, but we’ve hit the right way at last. Look how it rounds to starboard at the end, sir. I believe we’re going into big water directly.—There you are, sir,” added the man in a whisper, as, after rowing swiftly onward for nearly a quarter of a mile, the boat glided round a bend, where, to the midshipman’s great delight, they came in sight of what was pretty evidently the long narrow barge in which the planter had paid his visit to the Seafowl.
The well-made, nattily painted craft was lying well away from the reeds which shut in the open water, moored by a rope whose grapnel was sunk not far distant, and Murray held up his hand to impress the need for silence.
“See the crew ashore anywhere, sir?” asked Tom May.