"I don't see what good this reconnoitring is doing," I said to myself, as I sat there in the darkness wondering what was to happen next; but sailors on duty are only parts of a machine, and I waited like the rest to be touched or spoken to, and then acted as I was instructed.  For from time to time Mr Brooke's hand rested upon mine, and its touch, with its pressure or draw, told me at once the direction in which he wished me to steer; and so it was that, in that intense darkness, we sailed silently round those junks, going nearer and nearer till I knew exactly how they lay and how close together.  But all the while I was in a violent perspiration, expecting moment by moment to hear a challenge, or to see the flash of a match, the blaze up of one of the stink-pots the junks would be sure to have on their decks, and then watch it form a curve of hissing light as it was thrown into our boat.