“Mr. Frank!” cries Evans. There is no answer.
“Dead?” shrieks Amyas. “Look for him, for God's sake, look!” and struggling from under his living load, he peers into each pale and bleeding face.
“Where is he? Why don't you speak, forward there?”
“Because we have naught to say, sir,” answers Evans, almost surlily.
Frank was not there.
“Put the boat about! To the shore!” roars Amyas.
“Look over the gunwale, and judge for yourself, sir!”
The waves are leaping fierce and high before a furious land-breeze. Return is impossible.
“Cowards! villains! traitors! hounds! to have left him behind.”
“Listen you to me, Captain Amyas Leigh,” says Simon Evans, resting on his oar; “and hang me for mutiny, if you will, when we're aboard, if we ever get there. Isn't it enough to bring us out to death (as you knew yourself, sir, for you're prudent enough) to please that poor young gentleman's fancy about a wench; but you must call coward an honest man that have saved your life this night, and not a one of us but has his wound to show?”