"Come, you fellows, put out your strength; row, row!" "No," said Fouquet, "on the contrary; stop short." "Monseigneur! what folly!" interrupted Gourville, stooping towards his ear.
"Pull up!" repeated Fouquet.

The eight oars stopped, and resisting the water, created a retrograde motion.

It stopped.

The twelve rowers in the other did not, at first, perceive this maneuver, for they continued to urge on their boat so vigorously that it arrived quickly within musket-shot.

Fouquet was short-sighted, Gourville was annoyed by the sun, now full in his eyes; the skipper alone, with that habit and clearness which are acquired by a constant struggle with the elements, perceived distinctly the travelers in the neighboring lighter.
"I can see them!" cried he; "there are two." "I can see nothing," said Gourville.
"You will not be long before you distinguish them; in twenty strokes of their oars they will be within ten paces of us." But what the patron announced was not realized; the lighter imitated the movement commanded by Fouquet, and instead of coming to join its pretended friends, it stopped short in the middle of the river.
"I cannot comprehend this," said the captain.
"Nor I," cried Gourville.
"You who can see so plainly the people in that lighter," resumed Fouquet, "try to describe them to us, before we are too far off." "I thought I saw two," replied the boatman.