“Think, sir? Why, Billy and me’s sure on it, eh, Billy?”
“Sartain.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Drew, “you have done me good, my lads, for my heart felt very sore and my conscience reproached me cruelly for not doing more.”
“It’s all right, sir,” cried Smith, cheerily. “You wait till the morning comes, and then we shall see a way o’ sarcumventing this gas, as you calls it, and I daresay we shall find Mr Lane somewhere all right on t’other side.”
“If I could only feel that, I could rest till morning,” said Drew.
“Then just you feel it, sir,” said Smith. “It’s what I feels strong.”
“So do I, sir, now,” put in Wriggs. “If Tommy Smith mays so, it’s all right.”
Drew tried to think that it was, but the pleasant, hopeful sensation would not come, and he sat now with the men, now beside the mate and his friend Panton, waiting for the morning, the first hints of its approach being in the gradual paling of the golden light from the cloud over the volcano, and the appearance of the softer, more natural glow, that came in the east, bringing with it a more diffused light, and the hope that rides in with the dazzling rays of a new day.