“By that you mean get away from here sooner?” queried the vidette.
“Just what I do, George.”
“Suppose now it was a boat being put in the water that I heard, though I may have been mistaken; how long would it take them to row over here, do you think?” George asked next.
“That depends on how hard they handled the oars,” said Jack. “It could hardly be less than half an hour at the best, I should say. You see, the monitor lies down-stream from here, so they’d have to first of all work against the strong current before crossing.”
“Yes, and then again it might be they’d try to keep us from hearing them coming all they could, Jack, which would mean they couldn’t put all their strength into the work.”
“You’ve got the right idea, George; so we can have something like half an hour to get away in. It may turn out to be a false alarm after all, but we can’t afford to take any chances.”
“That’s so,” agreed the other briskly, for a wonder, never dreaming of offering any objection. “The sooner we’re abroad on the river the better. Then again, before the old moon comes up behind the clouds, we’ll have it pitch dark. That ought to help us a lot about slipping past without getting caught.”
“Stay here, and keep on listening, George.”
“Are you going back to get the rest of the crowd, Jack?”
“Yes. As soon as Josh has finished his supper we had better go aboard again and shove off,” he was informed.