“Course she may, mister,” grumbled the American. “Think I would ha’ telled yew if it hedn’t been all right? Yew Englishers are queer fish!”
“Yes,” said the lieutenant quietly. “We like to feel our way cautiously in strange waters.”
“Then I s’pose we may anchor now till your skipper comes? All right, then, on’y you’re not going to get up alongside of the schooner this side of to-morrow morning, I tell yew.”
“Very well, then, we must take the other side of her the next morning.”
The American issued an order of his own in a sulky tone of voice, lowering his sails; and then there was a splash as a grapnel was dropped over the side.
“Hadn’t yew better anchor?” he shouted good-humouredly now. “If yew don’t yew’ll go drifting backward pretty fast.”
For answer the lieutenant gave the order to lower the grapnel, and following the light splash and the running out of the line came the announcement of the sailor in charge as he checked the falling rope—
“No bottom here.”
“Takes a tidy long line here, mister,” came in the American’s sneering voice. “Guess your sloop’s keel won’t touch no bottom when she comes up.”
The lieutenant made no reply save by hoisting sail again and running to and fro around and about the anchored lugger, so as to pass the time in taking soundings, all of which went to prove that the river flowed sluggishly seaward with so little variation in the depth that the soundings were perfectly unnecessary.