They listened, but could hear nothing, and the lieutenant was about to order the men to pull more sharply, when Bob touched his arm again.
“I’m sure that’s firing, sir,” he said.
“Nonsense, Roberts! absurd! Sit still and be silent. What firing could it be? We are ten miles from the residency.”
“I can’t help it, sir, if we are twenty,” said Bob, sharply. “I’m sure it was firing, and there it goes again.”
“Silence, sir,” said the lieutenant, angrily. “Give way, my lads, give way.”
The ship’s boats glided on over the smooth water, the men rowing with muffled oars; and so steadily that the blades seemed to be dipping in without making a splash.
The creek grew narrower, so that they had to keep right in the middle to avoid letting the oar blades brush the reeds, and so they rowed on, but without seeing anything resembling a prahu.
As to their direction, that they could not tell, but the shape of the creek they believed to be that of a bow—at least so the Malays had described it; and as the two ends of the bow must rest upon the river, they were sure, unless they struck up some narrow tortuous way, to come out at the other mouth and join the boats.
They went on very cautiously, with the midshipman anxious to talk to Tom Long, who sat beside him, but forbidden now to utter so much as a whisper. The oars dipped and rose, dipped and rose, without a sound, and sometimes a reed or water plant rustled slightly as it brushed the sides of the boats.
That in which the lieutenant was in command led the weird procession, Captain Smithers being in the next, while the third, nearly full of marines, every man with his loaded rifle between his knees, was close behind.