“We'll not catch up with him!” Orme said desperately. “I'd tie the noose around his neck with my own hands, and pull the trapdoor.”

Monk did not answer. He was getting the weight and movement of the long oar right, and learning how to turn it to gain the greatest purchase against the water. At last they were going with the tide now, but then so were the barges, fifty yards ahead of them at least.

There was nothing Orme could do to help; it was a one-man job. He sat a little way over to the other side to balance Monk's weight, staring ahead, his uniform jacket fastened to hide as much as possible the fact that he now had no shirt. Certainly he would never wear that one again.

“They're longer than we are,” Monk said with determined optimism. “They can't weave through the anchored shipping, but we can. They'll have to go around.”

“If we go in between those ships we'll lose sight of them,” Orme warned grimly. “God knows where he could get to!”

“If we don't, we'll lose them anyway,” Monk replied. “They're fifty yards ahead now, and gaining.” He threw his weight onto the oar, and pulled it the wrong way. He knew the moment he felt the resistance that he had made a mistake. It took him more than a minute to get into the rhythm again.

Orme deliberately looked the other way, as if he had not noticed.

The barges swung wide around an East Indiaman anchored ahead of them, stevedores working on deck with chests of spices, silks, and probably tea.

Monk took the chance, veering to the port to pass between the East Indiaman and a Spanish schooner off-loading pottery and oranges. He concentrated on the regularity of his strokes and keeping his balance exactly right, and trying not to think that the barges were going over to the far shore now that they were out of sight. If they did, he might lose them, but if he did not take the chance to catch up, he certainly would.