“All right, sir. I’ve got hold. Let yourself float down, and make a snatch at the side.”
How it was done Peter did not know, and did not want to. It was enough for him in the darkness that he could feel that his companion had hold of the side of the boat, which had careened over so that the surface of the rippling river was within a few inches of the edge; and there they clung, listening with straining ears, trying to make out whether they had been heard.
“It’s all right, sir,” said Peter softly, as they now rested with their arms over touching the bottom of the boat.
“I don’t know,” said Archie. “I think the stern’s covered in. Is anybody on board?”
“Like enough, sir; but chance it;” and raising himself with a sudden movement which made a loud wallowing and sent a shudder of horror through his companion, Peter drew himself over the rough gunwale, rolled into the bottom of the boat, in company with a gush of water, and then, bayonet in hand, crept over the thwarts and under the attap-covered stern.
“All right, sir,” whispered the lad; and he crept to the far side of the boat, trimming it so that it made Archie’s task of joining him easier to achieve. “Ready, sir?”
“Yes. What about the moorings?”
“I was going to cut the rope, sir,” whispered Peter, “but I won’t. Perhaps it’s a grapnel, and we shall want it again.”
Creeping right to the bows, he began to haul on a roughly made fibre line, which came in readily as the water rippled more loudly against the stem, and the line became more and more perpendicular, till something struck against the frail woodwork of the bows, and, panting with his exertion, Peter drew a little, clumsily made anchor into the big sampan.
“That’s done it,” he whispered. “Hear anything, sir?”