"Steady…" Blackbeard said again, but whether he was whispering to them, or to the darkness, it was hard to tell. The man had a gloomy aura to him now. Vol wouldn't have been surprised to hear that he was guiding them by the whispers of ghosts.
The men by now were even forgetting to shiver. Even the veterans seemed to feel the tension. For the newer men, it was as though they were made of wood. Their necks twitched like birds, as they searched the darkness whenever they heard even the slightest sound.
They continued to hug the cliff face for a little ways, delicately avoiding underwater obstacles that no eye could ever hope to see, all done by the slightest little steer of Blackbeard's oar.
The cliff face began to run shallower, though the pine trees that clung to its banks still seemed impenetrable. If there was an army amongst them now, a hail of arrows could have ruined half the crew. Further tension ran through Vol at that realization, but the arrow volley never came.
