Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/280

 the dip of oars resonant in the hollow fog and a ripple babbling on her cutwater plainly discernible.

sounded the sleepy song of the rowers till they were looming right abreast and we could smell their damp hides in the morning air. Then they stopped suddenly and some one asked—

"Is there not something like a boat away on the right?"

"It is nothing," said another, "but the lees of last night's beer curdling in your stupid brain."

"But I saw it move."

"That must have been in dreams."

"What is all that talking about?" growled a sleepy voice of authority from the stern.

"Bow man, sir, says he can see a boat."

"And what does it matter if he can? Are we to delay every time that lazy ruffian spying a shadow makes it an excuse to stop to yawn and scratch? Go on, you plankful of lubbers, or I'll give you something worth thinking about!"

And joyfully, oh, so joyfully, we heard the sullen dip of oars commence again.

Nothing more happened after that till the sun at length shone on the little harbour town at the estuary mouth, making the masts of