"'Can you tell which is his?' I inquired.
"'To be sure—dis a one,' and he pointed to one nearly twice the dimensions of its fellows.
"'Has it been lately used, Sambo—can you tell?"
"'I soon find out, Massa Geral.'
"His device was the most simple and natural in the world, and yet I confess it was one which I never should have dreamt of. Stooping on the sands, he passed his hand under the bottom of the canoe, and then whispered.
"'Him not touch a water to-night Massa Geral—him dry as a chip.'
"Here I was at fault. I began to apprehend that I had been baffled in my pursuit, and deceived in my supposition. I knew that Desborough had had for years, one large canoe only in his possession, and it was evident that this had not been used during the night. I was about to order Sambo to shove off again, when it suddenly occurred to me that, instead of returning from a visit, the suspected settler might have received a visiter, and I accordingly desired my fides achates to submit the remainder of the canoes to the same inspection.
"After having passed his hand ineffectually over several, he at length announced, as he stooped over one which I recognized, from a peculiar elevation of the bow and stern, to be the same we had passed.
"'Dis a one all drippin' wet, Massa Geral. May I nebber see a Hebben ib he not a same we follow.'
"A low tapping against the door of the hut, which although evidently intended to be subdued, was now, in the silence of night, distinctly audible; while our whispers, on the contrary, mingled as they were with the crisping sound of the waves rippling on the sands were, at that distance, undistinguishable. It was evident that I had erred in my original conjecture. Had it been Desborough himself, living alone as he did, he would not have knocked for admission where there was no one to afford it, but would have quietly let himself in. It could then be no other than a visiter—perhaps a spy from the enemy—and the same to whom we had given chase.