"Yo kin jest steer to de right ob dat stump, yo can, Massa Jim. Plenty water. Reckon dem scum come along right in here. We hab um. Dere big lagoon way along a little furder." Thus it proved when the party had forced the boat past the obstruction guarding the river exit. Jim pushed his lever over a very little, and sent his propeller whirling just for so long as would give the launch way against the sluggish stream. As he did so Tom leaned his ponderous figure over the stem, causing it to dip violently, and, gripping the tree, directed the boat into clear water. A few more revolutions sent the launch through, and in time brought her abreast of Sam. They found the little fellow poised on a branch overhanging the water, for all the world as if he were a monkey, and from that position he dropped like a cat on to the deck of the launch. "What's this about a lagoon?" asked the Major eagerly. "You couldn't see it, surely?" Sam made no answer for the moment. He took the officer's hand and led him right forward. Then, while Tom clung to a branch to steady the vessel, his smaller comrade bade the Major lie on the deck. "Not see um if stand up," he explained. "Dem leaves and branches in de way; but Sam see um when he swim. Easy as talkin'. Dere's a young moon to-night, and now that we's right under de trees it's easy 'nough to look out into de open. Dere: ain't dat a lagoon? Gee! Ef I don't tink so!" It was laughable to watch his eagerness, while Sam's curious language, often enough sprinkled with long and difficult words, of the meaning of which he had not the remotest idea, was sufficient to make anyone not morose by nature die of laughing. But in any case he had made no mistake. As the Major stooped, so getting beneath the line of overhanging trees and branches, he saw as if from a tunnel a widespreading space filled by water, on the rippling surface of which the moonbeams played. Here and there a patch of rushes reared their heads into the air, while the far distance was hidden behind a cloudy, wet mist which smothered everything. "And you are sure that those rascals are here?" he asked. "Sure! Guess so, boss. Dere ain't no room for a mistake. Dem critters comed right in here. I see dere marks on de tree trunk, and den on the bank ob de stream. Dey stepped ashore, I tink, just where we are, den go aboard agin. Dey here; Sam sure as eggs." "Then, if there is no other exit from the lagoon, we have got them!" came the exultant answer. "We have only to bar the stream, and then set out in search; for, after all, none but a madman would leave the lagoon for the forest. Just hereabouts it is intensely thick, to say nothing of the fever which haunts it. Then, too, savage natives are known to exist, though some of them are friendly. I think, Jim, that we may almost say that we have them. What luck to have pitched upon the very spot they made for!"