Adong rose silently to his feet and raised his oar upright, while one of the men forward set the boat free and gave it a good thrust out into the current.
Adong lowered his oar silently into the water, not making the slightest splash; but to the astonishment of the little English party, instead of urging the boat across he gave a few vigorous thrusts and drove her back to the bank, squatting down again in his place.
"What does this mean?" whispered Mr. Kenyon sternly.
"Hist! Boat coming," whispered back the man, in his own tongue.
Those who heard him listened, but they could not hear a sound, and at the end of a few moments Mr. Kenyon turned angrily upon the man.
"There is no boat," he said, in the man's language. "Row across directly."
"No," said the man; "boat coming. Adong hear much farther than the master. Boat coming."
Harry thought of the man's life in the jungle, passed in tracking the wild creatures with his teacher, Sree, and felt that his senses would be keener than theirs, so that the boy was in nowise surprised when at the end of a minute the faint, far-off sound of paddling was borne to his ears, and a boat came nearer—a boat propelled by only one oar, and as far as he could make out with only two people in it besides the rower, for he could hear whispering as it passed like a shadow on the dark background in front of where he sat.
Adong made no movement till he was satisfied that the boat was out of hearing. Then uttering one word, the men who had held their prow to the bank once more gave a firm thrust, sending it into the current, and Adong sent the boat steadily across the river.
"Quicker! quicker!" whispered Phra, for from lower down came the sound of oars being used with furious haste, and voices were heard speaking angrily, while having the tide in their favour the fresh boat came along at so rapid a rate that the one the English party were in had only just time to glide in among some overhanging bushes by the bank, when a good-sized barge passed by so near to them that Harry felt that they must have been seen, though the next moment he knew that the passers-by would have looked upon their boat as one moored to the bank and empty.