But no gun spoke, and we kept on slowly, carried by the tide, and with the screw revolving just sufficiently for steering purposes, till once more the course of the river grew pretty straight, and the junks were in full view, our glasses showing the men toiling away at the long sweeps, and that the decks were crowded. This last was intensely satisfactory, for it swept away the last doubts as to the character of the vessels. Up to this point it was possible that they might have been trading junks whose skippers had taken alarm, but no mercantile junks would have carried such crews as we could see, with their bald heads shining in the sun. Just about that time Smith and I passed Tom Jecks, who gave me a peculiar look. "What is it?" I said, stopping to speak. "Can't you put in a word to the skipper, sir, and get him to stir up the engyneers?" "What for, Tom?" "To go faster, sir. It's horrid, this here. Why, I could go and ketch 'em in the dinghy." "Do you want the _Teaser_ stuck in the mud?" I said. "No, sir, o' course not; but I say, sir, do you think it's all right?" "What do you mean, Jecks?" "This here river, sir. I ayve read in a book about Chinee Tartars and magicians and conjurors. There was that chap in `Aladdin' as left the boy shut up down below. He were a Chinee, wasn't he?" "I think so, Tom; but what have the _Arabian Nights_ got to do with our hunting these pirates?" "Well, that's what I want to know, sir. If there was magic in them days in China, mayn't there be some left now?" "No, Tom," I said. "We've got more magic on board the _Teaser_ in the shape of steam, than there is of the old kind in all China." "Well, sir, you've had more schooling than ever I've had, but if it ain't a bit magicky about them boats, I should like to know what it is." "What's he talking about?" said Smith. "What do you mean?" "They're will-o'-the-wispy sort o' boats, sir," replied Jecks. "Don't you see how they keep dodging on us? Just now they was in easy shot, now they're two mile away. What does that mean?" "Physical conformation of the road," said Smith importantly. "Oh, is it, sir?" said Jecks, scratching his head, with a dry smile on his face. "Well, I shouldn't have thought as physic had anything to do with that, but I daresay you're right, sir. Wish we could give them junks physic." "I don't believe we shall get near enough to give them a dose," said Smith discontentedly. "If I were the skipper, I'd--" Smith did not say what he would, for just then there was a shout from the boat, the man with the lead giving such shallow soundings that we heard the gongs sound in the engine-room, and the clank of the machinery as it was stopped and reversed.