Susan said nothing. She did not like thinking of Titty alone on the island for so long.
John said nothing. For one thing, he was counting to himself and getting near a hundred. For another, the light of Susan’s torch in the bottom of the boat, where she was cutting hunks of cake and breaking up chocolate, and the light of his own torch, when he used it to look at the compass, made the darkness of the night even darker than it really was. It was better than being stuck in the river, much better, but Captain John knew very well that he could not really tell how near they might be to the shore. He was the captain of the Swallow and must not wreck his ship. Daddy had trusted him not to be a duffer and, sailing in this blackness, he did not feel so sure of not being a duffer as he did by day. And there were no lights in Rio to help him. Everything was black. He could only keep on tacking against the wind, and he was wondering what he should do when Swallow came near the islands off the Bay. And how would he know when she was coming near them? It would not do to let his crew know that he was worried. So he said nothing, except that he went on with his counting. Perhaps he counted a little louder than before. He reached a hundred, put Swallow about, and began again: “One, two, three,” as she went off on the other tack.
Backwards and forwards Swallow scurried across the lake in the dark. The islands could not be far away.
Suddenly John stopped counting.
“Listen,” he said. “Trees. I can hear the wind in them. What’s that?” He flashed his torch over the side. There was the white splash of water breaking on a rock. The noise of wind in trees was close ahead.
“Let go the halyard,” called John. “Down with the sail. Grab the gaff as it comes.”