nd across the roaring river. Then followed a few minutes of
intense excitement. The little craft rocked and swayed, and rose and
fell, tossed like a cork on the turbid waters. Morgan could scarcely
see a hand's-breadth before him. The rudder creaked as the pilot moved
it to and fro, and only his voice was heard as, very softly, he ordered
one oarsman after another to pull or back-water in order to hold the
course safely between the shallows and avoid the shifting sands, whose
presence, in the darkness, no eye could descry. Morgan was kneeling in
the bow, a stout pole in his hands; only once was he called upon to use
it, when the nose of the boat went crunching along the slope of a
sandbank for a few yards. At length came the welcome order, "Easy
all!" A minute later the boat was riding on an even keel under the
bank, rising and falling in rhythm with the suck and lap of the water
as it devoured the soft, red-brown walls that shut it in. The heads of
the men were on a level with the strip of turf that formed the land's
margin. Fifty yards back was the outer edge of a belt of dark wood
that covered the flat lands and swept up the sides of the hills that
lay off ten or twelve miles to the east. Against such a background
nothing would be visible in the darkness. Across on the Gatcombe side
were the steep sandstone cliffs, storm-washed and clean, and topped
with primeval forest.

"Master Morgan," said Drake, "how far out in the stream must we lie in
order that thou mayest distinguish the sail or hull of a ten-ton craft
against the cliff face?"

"I can do it from here, Sir Francis. The channel is about mid-stream;
and now that mine eyes are got accustomed to the dull tinge of the
water, I can see the fleck and scum on the farther sand-ridge."

"Good! thou art our watch."

The admiral turned to the rest of his party. "Gentlemen," said he, "in
one sense we work in the dark to-night; our foes have willed it so. Ye
have come out on this errand at my bidding, asking no questions, and
so, in a way, ye are groping in a double darkness. 'Tis not my way to
have men follow me blindly if I can open their eyes. I want those at
my back to see; by so doing they will strike the surer. Now, tidings
have reached me that those Spanish rascals whom ye wot of are about to
bring their plot to a head. Tomorrow night they hope to see the forest
in flames." The men stirred uneasily; Drake went on: "We have had a
long drought,