Hastening their preparations, they were in a short time seated upon the raft, Sam at the helm, and Robert and Harold by turn at the oars. Borne by the current, and impelled by their own efforts, they were not two hours in reaching the proposed landing place.
[Illustration: They were not two hours in reaching the proposed landing place]
The river was exceedingly crooked, and so densely bordered with mangroves, that from the place they left to that which they sought, it was nowhere possible for them to reach the shore. Once when they approached nearest land, they saw a herd of deer peep inquisitively at them through an opening glade, and turn quietly to feed. The tall heron was a frequent sight, lifting its long blue neck high as their heads, and then flapping its broad wings to escape too near an approach; and the dapper kingfisher turning his big head to look at them; and the "poor jobs," or small white cranes clustering thick upon the dead trees; and the Spanish curlew sticking forward its long curved bill; and the grey curlew with its keen note; and the marsh hens, cackling far and near, to say (such is the report) that the tide is moving; and ducks rising in clouds from different points of the marsh and reaches of the river;--these sights were very frequent, and seen with the bright eyes of young people on a Christmas excursion, imparted a charming vivacity to the scene.
Passing a creek which drained the marsh to their left, they made a discovery, which proved a valuable one indeed. Harold was looking up the creek with that universal scrutiny that had become in him second nature, when he suddenly dropped his oars, exclaiming, "What is that?"
The raft shot so quickly past that no one but Sam had time to look. He, however, replied instantly, "Starn ob a vessel!"
"Stern of a vessel, did you say?" inquired Robert. "'Bout ship, Sam. Come, Harold, let us pull right for it and see."
They brought the raft into an eddy near shore, and though it required a prodigious pull to propel so clumsy a thing against the tide from the creek, they managed to do so, and discovered not the stern of a vessel only, but the whole of a small brig turned bottom upwards, and lying across the creek jammed in the mud and mangroves.