“Why, Dicky, you stoopid, look here. I examined the thing, which you didn’t, no more than Rampick himself, if it’s true he’s been here already. He thought it wedged tight, maybe, and safe from us. Well, I tell you it’s only caught by the tip of its nose—far enough in to baffle us lying as it does, but easy enough to pull out floating.”
I stared at him a moment; then gave a wild hoot, and began to dance about as he had done before, and threw up my cap, and ended by hugging him.
“You beauty, you beauty! You dear old positive genius and darling! We shall get away, after all, with nothing but a ducking. And Uncle Jenico——”
A sudden choke stopped me. I turned away so that my friend shouldn’t see my shame.
“Dick, old man,” he said, soberly. “You mustn’t be too wild even now. It’s all right, I hope; only—well, it’s cold, and three of us to drift five miles on a spar——”
But I wouldn’t heed a word of his admonition. The recoil from despair had sent my wits toppling clean head over heels. If nothing but a bowl had offered, I should have been as joyous as a wise man of Gotham to commit our destinies to it. To have some means, any, to escape this hideous nightmare of enchainment to a living death!
“Hi! Gee-whoa! Get on!” I cried, chuckling hysteric, and drove Harry, holding the rope-end, up the sand before me. It paid out behind, and did not pull taut till we were well on the slope. Then, for the first time, we thought of Joshua, and turned to look for him.
He was standing, with some suggestion of agitation, on the edge of the further drift. The water had crept up since we left him, widening ominously the channel between. We waved our hands to him, and he responded.
“Look here,” said Harry. “He mustn’t be left in his ignorance; it’s torture. Besides—— Hold on, Dicky, while I go to him.”
“Why don’t you bawl across?”