“The tide’s running in, it’s true; but five miles, and in December!”
He ended with a despairing shrug.
“Very well,” said Joshua, so prompt and decided that he made us jump. “Then the wreck’s our one asset; and we’ll just go and see the best use we can make of it.”
With the word, he was striding over the sand, and, sprung to some sudden thrill of hope at his confidence, we followed him, our hearts thumping.
When we came down to the little strait, we found it already and undoubtedly widened. The cream of incoming surf showed more boldly over the lip of the further bank where the wreck lay; and between that and ourselves there was a sense of busier movement, as it might be water yawning and stretching after sleep.
“Now,” said Joshua, sharp as a lash, “swim across to her.”
“Swim! At once?” I exclaimed. “And what about you?”
“I’ve told you to leave me out,” he said, dry and composed. “You must swim, as you can’t jump. I’ll wait you here. Maybe you’ll find the means to float back on boards or such.”
Then we saw what was in his mind. It was a chance against all odds, and so poor a one, that we had hardly considered it, I think, in our agitation. The storm, we felt, must have gutted the carcase as clean as a dressed ox’s. Nothing detachable, but must have been wrenched and flung away. From where we stood, indeed, only the framework of the poop, gaunt, and inflexible, and rigid in its suggestion of ribs and spars shattered but unyielding, appeared to have survived its furious sacking by the waves. Moreover, a certain suspicion had come to us that Rampick had not now made his first acquaintance with the wreck; that, even perhaps so early as the serving of the last ebb, when fresh from hearing of our plans, he had rowed over to examine his ground by lantern-light, and to make sure—as so cunning a madman would—that no contingency of crate or cask or loosened plank should be allowed to mar his wicked purpose.
Though we might or might not be right in this (in point of fact, I believe, we were right), our hope, looking upon that lean account of ruin, was a very little hope. Still, for what it was, it lost nothing in inspiration from the self-confidence of our companion. I turned a desperate inquiring glance on Harry.