CHAPTER XI.
CANOEING ON THE SEA--A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT-SURPRISE AND SUDDEN FLIGHT.
At first the voyagers paddled over the glassy sea in almost total silence.
Nigel was occupied with his own busy thoughts; speculating on the probable end and object of their voyage, and on the character, the mysterious life, and unknown history of the man who sat in front of him wielding so powerfully the great double-bladed paddle.

Van der Kemp himself was, as we have said, naturally quiet and silent, save when roused by a subject that interested him.

As for Moses, although quite ready at any moment to indulge in friendly intercourse, he seldom initiated a conversation, and Spinkie, grasping the mast and leaning against it with his head down, seemed to be either asleep or brooding over his sorrows.

Only a few words were uttered now and then when Nigel asked the name of a point or peak which rose in the distance on either hand.

It seemed as if the quiescence of sea and air had fallen like a soft mantle on the party and subdued them into an unusually sluggish frame of mind.
They passed through the Sunda Straits between Sumatra and Java--not more at the narrowest part than about thirteen miles wide--and, in course of time, found themselves in the great island-studded archipelago beyond.
About noon they all seemed to wake up from their lethargic state.