“Big steamer—run us down—ain’t seen us—no good to shout,” cried Josh. “Steady, lad, steady. We’ve got to swim ashore.”
“Josh, ahoy! Where’s young master?” came out of the darkness. And now as Dick grew a little calmer, he fancied he saw pale lambent flashes of light on the water a little distance away.
“Here he be,” shouted back Josh. “Steady, boy, steady! Don’t tire yourself like that,” he added again to Dick.
The latter tried hard to obey, as he now became aware that at every stroke he made the water flashed into pale golden light; tiny dots of cold fire ran hither and thither beneath the surface, and ripples of lambent phosphorescent glow fell off to right and left.
At the same moment almost, he saw, beyond the star-like lanthorns of the steamer, the twinkling lights of the village, apparently at a tremendous distance away, while one strong bright star shed a long ray of light across the water, being the big lamp in the wooden cage at the end of the harbour pier.
“Avast there, Will!” shouted Josh again; “let’s overhaul you, and keep together. Seen either o’ the buoys?”
“No.”
“Why don’t they swim ashore?” thought Dick. “Never mind the buoys. Oh! I shall never do it.”
A cold chilly feeling of despair came over him, and he began to beat the water more rapidly as his eyes fixed themselves wildly on the far-off lights, and he thought of his father and brother, perhaps waiting for him on the pier.
“Swim slowly,” cried another voice close by; and Dick’s heart gave a leap. “It’s a long way, but we can do it.”