“Thank you, sir,” answered Smellie delightedly; and planting himself comfortably astride a branch, he drew out a pencil and paper and proceeded to make a very careful sketch-chart of the river-mouth, Banana Creek, and the creek in which the slavers were lying; noting the bearings carefully with the aid of a pocket-compass.
“There, sir,” said he, when he had finished, showing the sketch to the skipper; “that will enable me to find them, I think, let the night be as dark or as thick as it may. How do you think it looks for accuracy?”
“Capital!” answered Captain Vernon approvingly; “you really have a splendid eye for proportion and distance, Mr Smellie. That little chart might almost have been drawn to scale, so correct does it look. How in the world do you manage it?”
“It is all custom,” was the reply. “I make it an invariable rule to devote time and care enough to such sketches as this to ensure their being as nearly accurate as possible. I have devised a few rules upon which I always work; and the result is generally a very near approximation to absolute accuracy. But the sun is getting low; had we not better be moving, sir?”
“By all means, if you are sure you have all the information you need,” was the reply. “I would not miss my way in that confounded jungle to-night for anything. It would completely upset all our arrangements.”
“To say nothing of the possibility of our affording a meal to some of the hungry carnivora which probably lurk in the depths of the said jungle,” thought I. But I held my peace, and dutifully assisted my superior officers to effect their descent.
It was decidedly easier to go up than to go down; but we accomplished our descent without accident, and after a long and wearisome tramp back through the bush found ourselves once more on board the gig just as the last rays of the sun were gilding the tree-tops. The tide had now turned, and was therefore again in our favour; and in an hour from the time of our emerging upon the main stream we reached the sloop, just as the first faint mist-wreaths began to gather upon the bosom of the river.
I was exceedingly anxious to be allowed to take part in the forthcoming expedition and had been eagerly watching, all the way across the river, for an opportunity to ask the necessary permission; but Captain Vernon had been so earnestly engaged in discussing with Smellie the details and arrangements for the projected attack that I had been unable to do so. On reaching the ship, however, the opportunity came. As we went up over the side the skipper turned and said:
“By the way, Mr Smellie, I hope you—and you also, Mr Hawkesley—will give me the pleasure of your company to dinner this evening?”
Smellie duly bowed his acceptance of the invitation and I was about to follow suit when an idea struck me and I said: