," exclaimed our genial second luff;
"let drive at him. All is fish that comes to our net so long as we are
within range of the Yankee's telescope; fire at everything you see."

I raised my gun, pulled the trigger, and down dropped the crane into the
water with a broken wing.

"Very neatly done," exclaimed the skipper approvingly. "Pick up the
bird, Thomson,"--to the coxswain.

The unfortunate bird was duly picked up and hauled into the boat, though
not without inflicting a rather severe wound with its long sharp beak on
the hand of the man who grasped it; and we continued our course.

On reaching the mouth of the creek we hauled sharp round the projecting
point, and shaped a course up and across toward the opposite side of the
stream, steering for a low densely-wooded spit which jutted out into the
river some eight miles distant. The tide, which was rising, was in our
favour, and in an hour from the time of emerging from the creek into the
main stream we had reached our destination; the boat shot into a water-
way about a cable's length in width, the sail was lowered, the mast
unstepped, and the men, taking to their oars, proceeded to paddle the
boat gently up the creek.

We proceeded up this creek a distance of about two miles, when, coming
suddenly upon a small branch, or tributary, well suited as a place of
concealment for the boat, she was headed into it, and--after proceeding
along the narrow canal for a distance of perhaps one hundred yards--
hauled alongside the bank and secured.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MR. SMELLIE MAKES A LITTLE SURVEY.

Giving the gig's crew strict injunctions not to leave their boat for a
moment upon any consideration, but to hold themselves in readiness to
shove off on the instant of our rejoining them--should a precipitate
retreat prove necessary--Captain Vernon and Mr Smellie stepped ashore
with a request that I would accompany them.

The channel or canal in which the gig was now lying was about fifty feet
wide, with a depth of water of about eight feet at the point to which we
had reached. Its banks were composed of soft black foetid mud in a
semi-liquid state, _so_ that in order to land it was necessary for us to
make our way as best we could for a distance of some two hundred feet
over the roots of the mangrove trees which thickly bordered the stream,
before we were enabled to place our feet on solid ground.

Beyond the belt of mangroves the soil was densely covered with tha