signal to the other boats to fill away and follow us; and as
soon as we had reached the very middle of the channel we rounded-to and
lowered our sail, remaining where we were to act as a guide to the other
boats.

Keeping our position with the aid of a couple of oars thrown over to
enable us to stem the out-flowing current, which we now began to feel,
we allowed the other boats to pass in over the bar and reach the smooth
water before us; then, hoisting our sail again, we followed them in and
presently resumed our position at the head of the line.

The change from the scene of wind-flecked blue sea, stately march of the
swell, and thunderous roar and creaming froth of the breakers outside to
the oil-smooth, mud-laden, strong-smelling river, with its tiny,
swirling eddies here and there, its mangrove-lined banks, and its
silence, through which the roar of the surf came to us over the
intervening sand spit, mellowed and subdued by distance, was so marked
that, although this was by no means my first experience of that kind of
thing, I found myself rubbing my eyes as though I were by no means
certain that I was awake; and I noticed others doing the same. A sharp
word from the skipper, however, cautioning all hands to maintain a smart
look-out, soon brought to us the realisation of our surroundings; for
the river here was narrow, being not more than half a mile wide, with a
number of small islets dotted about it, any one of which might prove to
be the hiding-place of a formidable foe. When at length we had passed
these without interference, and had reached the point where the river
began to widen out somewhat, we were no better off, but rather the
worse; for here the stream was encumbered with extensive sandbanks, to
avoid which we were compelled to approach the margin of the river so
closely that a well-arranged ambush might have practically annihilated
us before we could have effected a landing through the thick, viscid mud
and the almost impenetrable growth of mangroves that divided the waters
of the river from the solid ground of the shore. Fortunately for us,
the slavers appeared unaccountably to have overlooked the admirable
opportunities thus afforded for frustrating an attack; or possibly, as
we thought, it was that they had fully relied upon the power of the
decoy schooner to draw us away from the coast, and thus leave the way
free for them to escape.

The passage of this part of the river occupied us until noo