ore it gets too dark, and
wait till it is morning. We shall be all right if we keep quite cool
and use our senses. If we had something to eat I shouldn't mind a bit,
except that mother will be getting anxious about us. It's a regular
adventure, and we shall have something to talk about for a long time.
Look out, Bill, we must push her further off--she's getting aground!"

For an hour they sat and chatted.

"Hullo! what's that?" Bill exclaimed at last. "That's the rattle of a
chain. I expect it's a barge anchoring somewhere near. Listen; I can
hear voices. I vote we hollo."

George lifted up his voice in a lusty shout. The shout was repeated
not very far off, and was followed by the shout of "Who are you?"

"We have drifted down from Gravesend and lost our way," George
shouted back. "We will come on board if you will let us."

"All right!" the voice replied; "I will go on shouting and you row to
my voice."

It was but a hundred yards, and then a voice close at hand said
sharply:

"Row bow hard or you will be across the chain."

Bill rowed hard, and George, looking round, saw that they were close
to the bows of a barge. Half a dozen more strokes and they were
alongside. Bill seized a hand-rope and sprang onto the barge, and the
boat was soon towing astern.

"Well, young men, however did you manage to get here?" one of the
bargemen asked. "It's lucky for you you weren't taken out to sea with
the tide."

George related the history of their voyage and how they had managed to
reach the shore.

"Well, you are good-plucked uns anyhow," the man said; "aint they,
Jack? Most chaps your age would just have sat in the boat and howled,
and a good many longshoremen too. You have done the best thing you
could under the circumstances."

"Where are we?" George asked.

"You are on board the _Sarah and Jane_ topsail barge, that's where you
are, about three parts down Sea Reach. We know our way pretty well
even in a fog, but we agreed it was no use trying to find the Swashway
with it as thick as this, so we brought up."

"Where is the Swashway?" George asked.

"The Swashway is a channel where the barges go when they are making
for Sheerness. It's well buoyed out and easy enough to follow with the
help of Sheerness lights on a dark night; but these fogs are worse
than anything. It aint no use groping about for the buoy when you
can't see ten yards ahead, and you might find yourself high and dry on
the mud and have to wai