Once outside, I set a course down stream as close to the northern shore as I dared go. Except for a rusty-looking steam tramp we had the whole river to ourselves, not even a solitary barge breaking the long stretch of grey water. One by one the old landmarks—Mucking Lighthouse, the Thames Cattle Wharf, and Hole Haven—were left behind, and at last the entrance to the creek that runs round behind Canvey Island came into sight.
One would never accuse it of being a cheerful, bustling sort of place at the best of times, but at five o'clock in the morning it seemed the very picture of uninhabited desolation. A better locality in which to enjoy a little quiet practice with new explosives it would be difficult to imagine.
I navigated the Betty in rather gingerly, for it was over three years since I had visited the spot. Joyce kept on sounding diligently with the lead either side of the boat, and at last we brought up in about one and a half fathom, just comfortably out of sight of the main stream.
"This will do nicely," I said. "We'll turn her round first, and then
I'll row into the bank and fix things up under that tree over there.
We can be back in the river before anything happens."
"Can't we stop and watch?" asked Joyce. "I should love to see it go off."
I shook my head. "Unless I've made a mistake," I said, "it will be much healthier round the corner. We'll come back and see what's happened afterwards."
By the aid of some delicate manoeuvring I brought the Betty round, and then getting into the dinghy pulled myself ashore.
It was quite unnecessary for my experiment to make any complicated preparations. All I had to do was to dig a hole in the bank with a trowel that I had brought for the purpose, empty my stuff into that, and tip in the gunpowder on top. When I had finished I covered the whole thing over with earth, leaving a clear passage for the fuse, and then lighting the end of the latter, jumped back into the boat and pulled off rapidly for the Betty.
We didn't waste any time dawdling about. Joyce seized the painter as I climbed on board, and hurrying to the tiller I started off down the creek as fast as we could go, taking very particular pains not to run aground.
We had reached the mouth, and I was swinging her round into the main river, when a sudden rumbling roar disturbed the peacefulness of the dawn. Joyce, who was staring out over the stern, gave a little startled cry, and glancing hastily back I was just in time to see a disintegrated-looking tree soaring gaily up into the air in the midst of a huge column of dust and smoke. The next moment a rain of falling fragments of earth and wood came splashing down into the water—a few stray pieces actually reaching the Betty, which rocked vigorously as a minature tidal wave swept after us up the creek.