n
hour, the leader of the expedition directing the course of the boat
straight across the harbor, as though toward the mouth of the Rio
Cobra River. Indeed, this was their destination, as Barnaby could
after a while see, by the low point of land with a great long row of
coconut palms upon it (the appearance of which he knew very well),
which by and by began to loom up out of the milky dimness of the
moonlight. As they approached the river they found the tide was
running strong out of it, so that some distance away from the stream
it gurgled and rippled alongside the boat as the crew of black men
pulled strongly against it. Thus they came up under what was either a
point of land or an islet covered with a thick growth of mangrove
trees. But still no one spoke a single word as to their destination,
or what was the business they had in hand.

The night, now that they were close to the shore, was loud with the
noise of running tide-water, and the air was heavy with the smell of
mud and marsh, and over all the whiteness of the moonlight, with a few
stars pricking out here and there in the sky; and all so strange and
silent and mysterious that Barnaby could not divest himself of the
feeling that it was all a dream.

So, the rowers bending to the oars, the boat came slowly around from
under the clump of mangrove bushes and out into the open water again.

Instantly it did so the leader of the expedition called out in a sharp
voice, and the black men instantly lay on their oars.

Almost at the same instant Barnaby True became aware that there was
another boat coming down the river toward where they lay, now drifting
with the strong tide out into the harbor again, and he knew that it
was because of the approach of that boat that the other had called
upon his men to cease rowing.

The other boat, as well as he could see in the distance, was full of
men, some of whom appeared to be armed, for even in the dusk of the
darkness the shine of the moonlight glimmered sharply now and then on
the barrels of muskets or pistols, and in the silence that followed
after their own rowing had ceased Barnaby True could hear the chug!
chug! of the oars sounding louder and louder through the watery
stillness of the night as the boat drew nearer and nearer. But he knew
nothing of what it all meant, nor whether these others were friends or
enemies, or what was to happen next.

The oarsmen of the approaching boat did not for a moment cease their