"
"I wish, at least, you would hold your tongue," muttered I.
The moon, that night, though past the full, was still large and oval,
and having risen between eight and nine o'clock, now shone aslantwise
over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its woods,
into deep shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually.
Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It lapsed
imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping its
own secrets from the eye of man, as impenetrably as mid-ocean could.
"Well, Miles Coverdale," said Foster, "you are the helmsman. How do
you mean to manage this business?"
"I shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past that stump," I
replied. "I know the bottom, having sounded it in fishing. The
shore, on this side, after the first step or two, goes off very
abruptly; and there is a pool, just by the stump, twelve or fifteen
feet deep. The current could not have force enough to sweep any
sunken object, even if partially buoyant, out of that hollow."
"Come, then," said Silas; "but I doubt whether I can touch bottom
with this hay-rake, if it's as deep as you say. Mr. Hollingsworth, I
think you'll be the lucky man to-night, such luck as it is."
We floated past the stump. Silas Foster plied his rake manfully,
poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole
length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless,
with the hooked pole elevated in the air.
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