I
am just going to see about the watch, and to say a few words below to
your father about having a good look-out kept, and then it won't be very
long before I turn in to my cot, for I am tired. This has been a rather
anxious day."

"You are going to speak to my father about having a good look-out kept?"

"Well, yes, my lad, and with our men well-armed. I don't say as it's
likely, and we are too near the sea for any villages of blacks; but it
wouldn't be very nice to have two or three big canoes come and make fast
to us in the night, and find the decks swarming with niggers who might
think that we were made on purpose for them to kill."

"Why, you don't think that's likely, do you?" cried Rodd.

"Not at all, my lad. But safe bind, safe find. What I have always
found is this--that when you keep a very strict look-out nothing
happens, and when you don't something does. Are you lads coming down?"

"Not yet," said Rodd.

"I suppose you will be going soon, won't you, Mr Morny?" said the
skipper, who somehow always forgot their visitor's title.

"I am expecting my father will be coming up soon to say it is time."

"Yes; I shouldn't leave it much longer," said the skipper. "I'll tell
him.--Joe Cross, there!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

"You and four men stand by with the gig to take the Count aboard his
vessel. You will just drop down head to stream ready to pull hard if
the tide seems a bit too heavy; and you, my lad, be ready forward with
the end of the line made fast to the thwart and the grapnel clear, ready
to drop overboard to get hold of the mud if you find the current too
strong."

"Ay, ay, sir!" cried the man; and the skipper went below.

"I am glad of that, Joe," said Rodd eagerly. "I was thinking whether
there was any risk of the boat being swept away."

"So was I, sir; but it's always the same. Whenever I think of something
that ought to be done I always find that our old man has thought of it
before. Did you see that we have swung round to our anchor?"

"No," said Rodd.

"We have, sir, and the tide's running out like five hundred million
mill-streams. You come for'ard here and feel how the cable's all of a
jigger, just as if the river had made up its mind to pull it right out
of the mud."

The two lads followed, and it was exactly as the man had said, for the
great Manilla rope literally thrilled as if with life, while the river
glided by the schooner's cutwater with a loud hiss.

"Why, Joe,