CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.
TRICKED.
They were singularly quiet, these people on board the junks, I suppose from old experience teaching them that noise made might mean at one time discovery and death, at another the alarming of some valuable intended prize.
This quietness was remarkable, for as we listened there was the creaking and straining of the rough capstan used, but no shouted orders, no singing in chorus by the men tugging at the bars; all was grim silence and darkness, while we lay-to there, waiting and listening to the various faint sounds, till we heard the rattling of the reed-sails as they were hauled up.

Then we knew that the junks were off, for there came to us that peculiar flapping, rattling sound made by the waves against a vessel's planks, and this was particularly loud in the case of a roughly-built Chinese junk.
"Are you going to follow them at once ?" I said in a whisper.
"Yes, till within an hour of daylight," was the reply.

"Now, be silent." I knew why Mr Brooke required all his attention to be directed to the task he had on hand--very little reflection was necessary.

For it was a difficult task in that black darkness to follow the course of those two junks by sound, and keep doggedly at their heels, so as to make sure they did not escape.

And then once more the slow, careful steering was kept up, Mr Brooke's hand guiding mine from time to time, while now for the most part we steered to follow the distant whishing sound made by the wind in the junk's great matting-sails.
All at once, when a strange, drowsy feeling was creeping over me, I was startled back into wakefulness by Mr Brooke, who said in an angry whisper-- "Who's that ?" I knew why he spoke, for, though half-asleep the moment before, I was conscious of a low, guttural snore.
"Can't see, sir," came from one of the men.