“Because I thought we ought to try,” said Vince sharply, as he suddenly changed his tone. “There, it’s of no use to talk, Mike. We’re in for it, and I’m not going to give up like a coward. I don’t know where we are, and you don’t; but we’re in one of those whirls that go round and round when the tide’s running up or down, and we can’t be any worse off than we are now, for there are no rocks, seemingly.”
“But the middle—the hole.”
“They don’t have any hole. Why, you know, old Joe sailed us right across one out yonder by the Grosse Chaine, and we went into the little one off Shag Rock. It’s one like that we’re in, and I daresay if it was daylight we could see how to get out of it by a few tugs at the oars, same as we got out of that one when we went round and round before. Oh, we shall be all right.”
Mike did not speak, for the words seemed to give him no comfort.
“Do you hear, Ladle?” continued Vince. “If we had been likely to upset, it would have been all over with us long ago; but we go on sailing round as steadily as can be, and I feel sure that we shall get out all right. What do you say to lying down and having a nap?”
“Lie down? Here? Go to sleep?” cried Mike in horror. “I couldn’t.”
“I could,” said Vince. “I’m so tired that I don’t think I could keep awake, even if I knew old Jarks was likely to come and threaten me with a pistol. But, I say, Ladle, that wretch shot at us twice. Why, he might have hit one of us. Won’t he have to be punished when we get away and tell all about him?”
“Yes, I suppose so—if ever we do get away,” said Mike sadly.
Then they relapsed into silence, both watching the stars to convince themselves that they were going round and round, making the circuit of some wide place surrounded by the towering rocks, which made the sea look so intensely black.
At last, thoroughly convinced, the strain of thinking became too great, the motion of the boat and the constant gliding along in that horrible monotonous whirl began to affect Mike as it had affected Vince, and, in spite of his energetic struggles to rouse himself from it, was now attacking him more strongly than ever. They were surrounded by dangers, the least of which was that of the pursuing boat with the exasperated captain; for so surely as the boat grazed upon a rock just below the surface she would capsize. But all this was as nothing to the mentally and bodily exhausted lads. Nature was all-powerful, and by degrees the head of first one then of the other drooped, and sleep, deep and sudden, fell upon them.