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The rattle of the oar on the thwarts gave the earliest notice of my approach to the people on board the little vessel, and I could hear the first lieutenant exclaim in haste, "Attend the side! Where are the sides-men?" Scarcely had these words been spoken, when I heard a splash in the water, followed by a faint cry of distress and despair.
The two youths dragged their guns from beneath the thwarts of the boat, and rummaged about in great anxiety for shot-belts and powder-horns. At last they were found; and having loaded, they sat on the edge of the boat, looking out for game with as much ay, with more intense interest than a Blackfoot Indian would have watched for a fat buffalo cow.
By quietly sliding two oars forward, along the thwarts, without impeding the rowers, we shipped two bow oars, and thus, by the help of four oars and the captain's strong arm, we got safely off, though we shipped several seas, which left us half full of water.
Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I passed miserable hours, unable to move more than a few inches in the narrow space. At noon, with the vertical eye of the evil sun staring down upon us, my clothes were so hot that I had to hold them off my body. I meditated leaping into the ocean and swimming awhile. Ghost Girl saw my intention when I stirred, and pulled me back beside her.
"Ambition!" says one. "Disappointment!" cries another. "Some private grudge!" hints a third. "Mob-courting vanity!" sneers a fourth. The people admire at first, but suspect afterwards. The moment he thwarts a popular wish, there is no redemption for him: he is accused of having acted the hypocrite, of having worn the sheep's fleece: and now, say they, "See! the wolf's teeth peep out!"
Yet the darkness was so deep now that but for the lantern on the fore thwarts he could not have seen George at all. There were no sounds but those of their rowing. Nellie sat erect, half hidden in the umbrella Ned held over her. George pulled a long sweeping stroke, bringing it up with a jerk that made the rowlocks sound sharply. When he bent back they could feel the light boat lift under them.
This gives the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller advantage than it has elsewhere on the lake. We usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from shore, and then lay down on the thwarts, in the sun, and let the boat drift by the hour whither it would. We seldom talked. It interrupted the Sabbath stillness, and marred the dreams the luxurious rest and indolence brought.
"Use your eyes oh, use your eyes!" called out Pengelly: but no soul could they see on her besides two or three of the crew forward and a little officer standing aft beside the helmsman. Pengelly ran forward, leaping the thwarts, and fetched the tailor a rousing kick. "Sit up!" he ordered, "and tell us if that's the orficer you spoke to last night!"
Six of the crew were on board, seated on the thwarts with their oars shipped, for Peter had insisted on a certain approximation to man of war manners and discipline for the evening, or at least until they got to the fishing ground.
So two stout poles were secured and laid across our two large canoes as they rested about a foot apart and parallel to one another. Then, the poles being lashed to the thwarts, a single "four-point" blanket was rigged horizontally to two masts, one standing in each canoe and both guyed with tump-lines, and leaning away from each other in order to spread the improvised sail.
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