Crawshay glanced up blandly.
"What's that?" he demanded. "Wireless? Why, it's been going all the morning."
"There has been no one there to take the messages, though. If anything happens to us, we shall be in a nice pickle."
Crawshay shivered.
"I wish you people wouldn't suggest such things," he said, a little testily. "I was just trying to get all thought of this most perilous voyage out of my mind, with the help of a novel here. From which do you seriously consider we have most to fear," he went on, "mines, submarines, or predatory vessels of the type of the Blucher?"
"The latter, I should think," Jocelyn replied. "They say that submarines are scarcely venturing so far out just now."
There was a brief silence. Jocelyn Thew was apparently engaged in trying to fit a cigarette into his holder.
"Specially hard luck on you," he remarked presently, "if anything happened when you've taken so much trouble to get on board."
"It would be exceedingly annoying," Crawshay declared, with vigour, "added to which I am not in a state of health to endure a voyage in a small boat. I have been this morning to look at our places, in case of accident. I find that I am expected to wield an oar long enough to break my back."
Jocelyn Thew smiled. The other man's peevishness seemed too natural to be assumed.