Mr Brooke's hand was laid on mine, and the tiller pressed sidewise slowly and gently, so that the boat glided round head to wind, and we lay motionless, listening to the dull creak and regular beat of oars a short distance to the north.  Then came a faint groan or two of the oars in their locks, but that was all.  We could see nothing, hear no other sound, but all the same we could tell that a large boat of some kind was being pulled in the same direction as that which we had taken.