"I'll chance that," said Jack, who, however, continued his preparations more deliberately, and with his eye still on the receding boat.
He was about to take the icy plunge, in the last effort to save himself and friends, when he stopped, and, straightening up, watched the craft for a few seconds.
"No," said he, "it can't be done; the thing is drifting faster than I can swim."
Such was the evident fact. While the vast mass of ice, as has been explained elsewhere, was under the impulse of a mighty under-current, the small craft was swept away by the surface current which flowed in the opposite direction.
Even while the party looked, the boat faded from sight in the gloom.
"I can't see it," said Rob, who, like the others, was peering intently into the darkness.
"Nor I either," added Fred.
"And what's more, you'll never see it again," commented Jack, who began slowly donning his outer garments; "younkers, I've been in a good many bad scraps in my life, and more than once would have sworn I was booked for Davy Jones' locker, but this is a little the worst of 'em all."
His young friends looked wonderingly at him, unable to understand the cause of such extreme depression on the part of one whom they knew to be among the bravest of men, and in a situation that did not strike them as specially threatening.
"Don't you think this iceberg will hold together until morning?" asked Rob.