"Shove off, and give way for a last pull before you get a long rest."

The men lay back on their oars, grunting. Their faces were drawn, grey
and streaked with the dried salt sprays. They had the worried expression
of men who had a long call made upon their endurance. Carter, heavy-eyed
and dull, steered for the yacht's gangway. Lingard asked as they were
crossing the brig's bows:

"Water enough alongside your craft, I suppose?"

"Yes. Eight to twelve feet," answered Carter, hoarsely. "Say, Captain!
Where's your show of cutthroats? Why! This sea is as empty as a church
on a week-day."

The booming report, nearly over his head, of the brig's eighteen-pounder
interrupted him. A round puff of white vapour, spreading itself lazily,
clung in fading shreds about the foreyard. Lingard, turning half round
in the stern sheets, looked at the smoke on the shore. Carter remained
silent, staring sleepily at the yacht they were approaching. Lingard
kept watching the smoke so intensely that he almost forgot where he
was, till Carter's voice pronouncing sharply at his ear the words "way
enough," recalled him to himself.

They were in the shadow of the yacht and coming alongside her ladder.
The master of the brig looked upward into the face of a gentleman,
with long whiskers and a shaved chin, staring down at him over the side
through a single eyeglass. As he put his foot on the bottom step he
could see the shore smoke still ascending, unceasing and thick; but even
as he looked the very base of the black pillar rose above the ragged
line of tree-tops. The whole thing floated clear away from the earth,