After rowing a hundred yards they could dimly make out the outline of a white house.

There was a break just in the center, and the outline of a tree could be seen above the roof.

Dick leant forward and again touched the lieutenant.
"That must be the house, sir," he whispered.
Mr.Ferguson nodded without speaking; and after the boat had gone another hundred yards, the line of forest could again be seen, and the boat was rowed into the bank, and two minutes later shot through a narrow channel and entered a creek some forty yards wide.
"Now you can give way again, lads." An hour's paddling in a sampan would mean about three miles, and after twenty minutes' sharp rowing, the men were ordered to row easy again, and the lieutenant and Dick kept an anxious lookout ahead.

The creek was here little more than fifty yards across, and, accustomed as their eyes were to darkness, they presently saw that it widened out suddenly.

The word was passed down for the men to paddle easily, and in two minutes the pool opened before them.