Chapter Thirty.
Frying-Pan to Fire.
A good breakfast was eaten upon that eventful morning, Dan having plenty of materials for producing a capital meal, and, to judge from appearances, the men were quite ready to settle down to their tasks again, as they made no sign.
Brace had hard work to keep from casting uneasy glances at them, but he did pretty well, joining in the chat over the meal, and listening to a yarn from the captain about how he had traced out the deep channel years before in just such a shallow river as this, and how he was going to find one now.
“This’ll be ten times as easy,” he said, “for we only want water enough for these boats. I wanted water enough then for a big schooner, heavily laden.—What’s the matter, sir?”
This was to Brace, who passed the question off.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said aloud. “Go on.”
“Oh, there’s nothing more to tell. I found a winding channel by sounding from the schooner’s boat with an eighteen-foot bamboo,” said the captain loudly; and then, as Sir Humphrey was speaking to Briscoe, he bent forward to pick up a biscuit, and whispered to Brace:
“What was it, my lad?”