“Don’t, Pete—don’t!” whispered Archie. “This is no time for trying to be funny.”
“All right, sir. I thought it was, for I’m in precious low spirits. Think we can manage to stop opposite the Doctor’s garden?”
“We must, Pete; but I can make out nothing. I suppose we are a long way above the landing-place.”
“Oh yes, sir; and perhaps it’s all for the best as we can’t see, for if we could, whoever’s ashore would see us; and that would mean spears, for none of our chaps would be about here.”
“Look here, Pete, we must both watch; but you get right in the bows with the grapnel in your hand, ready to drop it over silently when I say Now!”
“Right, sir; but we must have ever so far to go yet, eh?”
“I am not sure, Pete.”
“No, sir; but you will have to chance it.”
Archie uttered an angry ejaculation, and then clutched sharply at the side of the boat, which shivered from end to end and nearly capsized as it glided up the slanting rope of a larger vessel with which it had come violently in contact. But it righted itself quickly, and scraped along the side, with the lads crouching lower as they listened to the angry, muttering of voices and the scuffling of people moving. But the next minute the river had borne them clear, and the muttering died away.
“That must have been a naga, Pete, from the size of it, and having men on board.”