It was chilling work, and my teeth were chattering as I leant over the bows, shoving her off any rocks, and trying to find one with a lamp on it. There was a good deal of danger, too, for though the sea was calm, the swell was quite noticeable directly we got close in under the cliffs, and though the boat was a strongly built old tub, her sides once or twice creaked and groaned as they ground up against the rocks. "Oars," whispered the Commander. Jones stopped pulling, and I noticed that we did not seem to lose way; in fact, we glided quite rapidly past a great dark mass of boulders. "We must be near the entrance now; look how we are being set in with the current," said the Commander softly. "H’st!" he hissed, and we heard the regular noise of oar in rowlock. It was coming towards us, coming from seaward, every moment louder and clearer—ump-ump! ump-ump! backwards and forwards. "It’s a native boat," the Commander whispered; and then, "Back starboard, Jones! Back for your life, man!" Jones jerked his oar violently in the water, and, oh horrors! the rotten wood cracked, gave way, and the blade fell into the sea as a dark shape went splashing past us, with a little glow amidships as from a red-hot charcoal brazier—enough to show the dim blotch of a man swaying to and fro, grunting loudly at each ump-ump of a long sweep over the stern. We thought that he must see us or hear the noise of the breaking oar, and remained as still as death, whilst the native—a fisherman probably coming back from raising his traps—disappeared into the darkness. What were we to do? We had no spare oar in the boat, and Jones vainly tried to scull with the remaining oar over the stern. He could not even bring her bows round against the current, which we could now hear bubbling and sluicing past the rocks, and when at last we managed to get her round by paddling with the bottom boards, our last oar broke off short, Jones nearly tumbling overboard as it gave way. In desperation he ripped up another bottom board, and we three paddled as if for dear life. We could see nothing, not even each other’s faces, but a cold breeze coming from the island told us that we were already inside the entrance channel, and were being sucked in between the two forts which we had come to spy out. Work how we could—and how it did tire my wrists! with a great deal of noise and splashing, which we expected every moment to raise the alarm—we could not make the least headway. "Make for the side," came from the Commander. But we could not even do that. The boat was out of our control, and, spinning round and round in the eddies of the current, was drawn through the dark channel towards the pirates’ harbour.