it seemed to him that the last and the most real of his dreams was that a boat came by. But this, he thought, must be drowning and it was not hard to drown, to dream of being rescued and to go down, down, down, to the cold, strange tideless depths of sea from which no one ever comes up alive. Still, there was the boat in his dream, but it had come too late, and it seemed to Colin, that with his last effort he pushed Roote toward the outstretched arms of the men in the boat, waved a feeble farewell and sank. The water gurgled in his ears, there was a horrible strangulation, he tried to cry out, his lungs filled with water, and he knew no more.
Hours passed. Then, with a sense of suddenly arriving from a far-off place, Colin opened his eyes. He was in the cabin of a ship, and despite his exhaustion, he tried to rouse himself at the sound of voices. Roote, and another man, the captain of the bark, were standing beside his bunk.
"He's a plucky youngster, as well as a great swimmer," he heard the captain say. "Who is he?"
And Colin heard the other reply, with a note of pride in his voice:
"That's Colin Dare. He's one of our men. We think a lot of him in the Bureau of Fisheries!"
And the boy, wanly, but happily smiling, fell into a deep but healthy sleep.