This quietness was remarkable, for as we listened there was the creaking and straining of the rough capstan used, but no shouted orders, no singing in chorus by the men tugging at the bars; all was grim silence and darkness, while we lay-to there, waiting and listening to the various faint sounds, till we heard the rattling of the reed-sails as they were hauled up.  Then we knew that the junks were off, for there came to us that peculiar flapping, rattling sound made by the waves against a vessel's planks, and this was particularly loud in the case of a roughly-built Chinese junk.