They went drifting on down the noble river, blue in the distance and green overside, clear and transparent, so that they could actually see the bottom passing away below them.
It was only a few minutes before they reached the confluence of the Allier, itself a fine river almost the size of the Loire, and the united stream was majestically wide, a hundred and fifty fathoms at least from bank to bank.
They were a long musket shot from land, but their position was safer even than that implied, for from the water's edge on either side stretched an extensive no man's land of sand and willow which the periodic floods kept free from human habitations and which was only likely to be visited by fishermen and laundering housewives.
The mist had entirely vanished now, and the hot sun bore with all the promise of one of those splendid spring days of central France.
Hornblower shifted in his seat to make himself more comfortable.
The hierarchy of this, his new command, was topheavy.
A proportion of one seaman to one lieutenant and one captain was ludicrous.
He would have to exercise a great deal of tact to keep them all three satisfied — to see that Brown was not made resentful by having all the work to do and yet that discipline was not endangered by a too democratic division of labour.
In a fifteen foot boat it would be difficult to keep up the aloof dignity proper to a captain.
"Brown," he said. "I've been very satisfied with you so far.
Keep in my good books and I'll see you're properly rewarded when we get back to England.
There'll be a warrant for you as master's mate if you want it."
"Thank 'ee, sir.
Thank 'ee very kindly.
But I'm happy as I am, beggin' your pardon, sir."
He meant he was happy in his rating as a coxswain, but the tone of his voice implied more than that.
Hornblower looked at him as he sat with his face turned up to the sun, pulling slowly at the sculls.
There was a blissful smile on his face — the man was marvellously happy.
He had been well-fed and well-housed for months, with plenty of women's society, with light work and no hardship.
Even now there was a long prospect ahead of him of food better than he had ever known before he entered France, of no harder work than a little gentle rowing, of no need ever to turn out on a blustering night to reef topsails.
Twenty years of the lower deck in King George's Navy, Hornblower realized, must make any man form the habit of living only in the present.
To-morrow might bring a flogging, peril, sickness, death; certainly hardship and probably hunger, and all without the opportunity of lifting a finger to ward off any of these, for any lifting of a finger would make them all more certain.
Twenty years of being at the mercy of the incalculable, and not merely in the major things of life but in the minor ones, must make a fatalist of any man — who survived them.
For a moment Hornblower felt a little twinge of envy of Brown, who would never know the misery of helplessness, or the indignity of indecision.
The river channel here was much divided by islands each bordered by a rim of golden gravel; it was Hornblower's business to select what appeared to be the most navigable channel — no easy task.
Shallows appeared mysteriously right in the centre of what had seemed to be the main stream; over these the clear green water ran faster and faster and shallower and shallower until the bottom of the boat was grating on the pebbles.
Sometimes the bank would end there with astonishing abruptness, so that one moment they were in six inches of rushing water and the next in six feet of transparent green, but more than once now they found themselves stuck fast, and Brown and Hornblower, trousers rolled to the knee, had to get out and haul the boat a hundred yards over a barely covered bank before finding water deep enough.
Hornblower thanked his stars that he had decided on having the boat built flat-bottomed — a keel would have been a hampering nuisance.
Then they came to a dam, like the one which had brought them disaster in the darkness during their first attempt to navigate the river.
It was half natural, half artificial, roughly formed of lumps of rock piled across the river bed, and over it the river poured in fury at a few points.
"Pull over to the bank there, Brown," snapped Hornblower as his coxswain looked to him for orders.
They ran the boat up on to the gravel just above the dam, and Hornblower stepped out and looked downstream.
There was a hundred yards of turbulent water below the dam; they would have to carry everything down.
It took three journeys on the part of Hornblower and Brown to carry all their stores to the point he chose for them to re-enter the river — Bush with his wooden leg could only just manage to stumble over the uneven surface unladen — and then they addressed themselves to the business of transporting the boat.
It was not easy; there was a colossal difference between dragging the boat through shallows even an inch deep only and carrying her bodily. Hornblower contemplated the task glumly for some seconds before plunging at it. He stooped and got his hands underneath.
"Take the other side, Brown.
Now — lift."
Between them they could just raise it; they had hardly staggered a yard with it before all the strength was gone from Hornblower's wrists and fingers and the boat slipped to the ground again.
He avoided Brown's eye and stooped again, exasperated.
"Lift!" he said.
It was impossible to carry the heavy boat that way.
He had no sooner lifted it than he was compelled to drop it again.
"It's no go, sir," said Brown gently.
"We'll have to get her upon our backs, sir.
That's the only way."
Hornblower heard the respectful murmur as if from a long distance.
"If you take the bows, beggin' your pardon, sir, I'll look after the stern.
Here, sir, lift t'other way round.
Hold it, sir, 'till I can get aft.
Right, sir.