"'Well, he's no use to us, even if we do fish him up,' said I, pretty grimly. 'Here's the dog's owner, and that's as far as we get. Since a dog—even so intelligent a pup as Rover here—can't very well attach a weight to his master's ankle and cast him overboard—let alone pulling his boat above high water and stowing sail—we'll conclude that this fellow deliberately made away with himself. As I make it out, the dog, thus marooned, struck pretty frantically for the high ground. Lost dogs—and lost children, for that matter— always make up hill, dark or daylight. I suppose it's the primitive instinct to search for a view.… But anyway, here's a boat. She's unseaworthy, as she lies: but her timbers look sound enough if we can staunch her, and the first thing is to get her down to the water and see how fast she fills. We've a baler, to cope with the leak… and when we have her more or less staunch, here's the way around to our camp. Hurry up your wits!' I added sharply.
"'If we launch her here,' he twittered, 'she'll settle down on that!'
"'Then run,' said I, 'and, with all the knowledge you ever picked up in Tottenham Court Road, fetch every grass and fibre you can collect, to stuff her seams. I'll do the sailing while the wind's fair offshore, as it is at present. When it heads us, I'll do the pulling. Man alive! think of your burst boot! For my part, I'm willing enough to stay here as anywhere: or you can stay, and I'll start back for camp, and we'll share this island like two kings, you keeping this imperial anchorage.'
"But of course this had him beaten. He helped me launch the boat and ran to collect stuffing for her seams, while I sat in her and baled, baled, baled.… It was pretty eerie to sit there alone—for the dog had gone with Farrell—fighting the water, and feel her settling, if for five minutes I gave up the struggle, down nearer and nearer upon the shoulders of that drowned corpse with the hidden face. By sunset Farrell returned with an armful of sun-dried fibre. We hauled the boat high again and he began caulking her lower seams, that already had started to close.
"'She'll keep afloat now for a few hundred yards,' he announced after a while. 'Let's launch her again and run her round the point and beach her. I left a bundle of bark there that, early to-morrow, we'll cut in strips and tack over the seams, and she'll do fine to carry us home.'
"'Home?' echoed I grimly.
"'You know what I mean, you blighter!' he snarled. 'Oh, for God's sake, no—we mustn't start bickering alongside of that!' He forced his eyes to look down again at the corpse, and shuddered. 'The tide's going down, too.'
"'It won't go down far enough to uncover him: and that you ought to have sense to know," said I.
"'But the farther it goes down the nearer he'll come up, or seem to,' he argued.
"'Well, night's coming on, and you won't see him,' I suggested, playing on his nerves.