better; and if they don't come down in the boats, how we are going to
get back is more than I know."

"Look! Look yonder!" cried Rodd, as, sweeping the park-like stretch
around him, he suddenly caught sight of an object that filled his breast
with joy.

"Three cheers, my lads," shouted Joe, waving his hand, "and--Oh, hold
hard! Avast there! Gig's safe to have a hole through her bottom."

For there, about a hundred yards away, between the trees, lay something
gleaming amongst the mud.

He could only see a portion, but that was enough, and one by one, stiff
and cold, the unfortunate party lowered themselves down from their
perches to drop into a thin surface of soft mud, the swift rush of the
tide preventing it from accumulating to any depth.

Their fortune was better than they anticipated, for on reaching the
boat's side it was to find that, though bottom upward, she had escaped
any serious injury, the yielding boughs into which she had been swept
having checked the force of the concussion and left her to glide from
tangle of boughs to tangle, until she had been wedged into a huge fork
and had from there slowly settled down.

But there was neither oar nor boat-hook, and the line fastened to her
foremost thwart had been snapped in two.

"All her tackle gone," said Joe grimly. "Well, we must try and find and
hack off some big bamboo canes with our jack-knives, and then try if we
can't punt her up against the tide, which ought to be pretty slack by
now--that is, if they don't come to find us."

"But look here, Joe," cried Rodd, as he stood shading his eyes from the
horizontal sunbeams; "there's the river, and the mist's rolling along
with the tide. Here, I'm puzzled. Which way did we come?"

"Why, that's plain enough, Mr Rodd, sir. Down with the stream yon
way."

"But that must be down-stream."

"Nay, not it, my lad. The river winds, and so did my head. Here, I'm
all of a maze still. No, I aren't. Here, I'm blest! Why, you are
right, sir. That is up-stream, and--Hooray, my lads! One pole will do,
to steer. We are going to be carried back again, for the tide's turned
and running up steady."

A very little search resulted in their coming upon a bed of canes, out
of which four were cut and trimmed, supplying them with good stout poles
twelve or fourteen feet long, and laying these along the thwarts the
men, glad now of the exercise to drive out the chill, insisted upon Rodd
getting into the boat w