“Yes; but isn’t it too early?”
“Not a bit, sir. But it’ll be daybreak directly, to be sure. See there?”
I could see a very pale streak right away down and over the big river in what I knew to be the east, but I was still too drowsy to feel much interest in our excursion, and consequently replied rather gruffly to Hannibal’s good-natured—
“Morn’, Mass’ George.”
Just then the boat’s keel grated on the pebbles, Hannibal jumped out, took the guns which Pomp parted with unwillingly, and passed them to Morgan, who stowed them in the stern. Then mine was passed in, and Hannibal bent down.
“Jump on, Mass’ George, no get foot wet.”
I leaped on his great broad back, thinking that he was getting his feet wet, but that it did not matter as they were bare; then wash, wash went the water on both sides as the great black and his boy waded out. I was dropped into the boat, the two blacks ran it out a little and stepped in, Morgan came aft to me, and the others backed water a while, and after turning, rowed out a little but kept pretty close, so as to be out of the swift current running down toward the sea.
“Talk about early,” said Morgan, pointing to the increasing pallor of the sky; “why, it will soon be broad daylight, and I want to get to the mouth of the stream by that time.”
They rowed on, and the freshness of the air, the motion of the boat, and the thorough feeling of change soon made me forget my discomfort, and as the pale dawn spread and showed the thick mist hanging over the low growth at the edge of the river, the memory of the last time I came by there started to my mind, and I looked eagerly at the near shore, thinking of hidden Indians ready to send flying their keenly-pointed arrows.
Morgan saw the direction of my glance, and said with a laugh—