“Soon as you can, my lad,” he whispered, “reach down and get hold of one of the rudder-lines. I’ll make him fast to that.”
“But his head—it must be kept above water,” whispered back Mark in a choking voice, for he felt hysterical and strange.
“What for, my lad?” said the coxswain. “It can do no good. Half a million o’ doctors couldn’t save his life. He was done for when they pitched him in, and I should like to have my will o’ them as done it. Precious little marcy they’d get out o’ me.”
“Come along here, Mr Vandean,” cried the lieutenant from the bow end of the boat; and Mark shudderingly left the coxswain making fast the wrist of the dead black to one of the rudder-lines, and joined his brother officer, easily passing from one to the other of the men as they half lay on the bottom, resting and clinging by one hand to the keel.
“Cheer up, my lad!” said the lieutenant. “There’s nothing to mind. The sea couldn’t be smoother, and we can hold on like this for any length of time. The captain is sure to come back soon to pick us up.”
Mark made no answer, but crept into as secure a place as he could beside his officer, gazed away at the dimly-seen vessels, and listened to the dull report of gun after gun.
“Well, you are very quiet,” said the lieutenant after a long pause. “Why don’t you speak?”
“I have only one thing to say,” replied Mark, “and I did not like to say that.”
“Why not? What is it?”
“I wanted to know whether they would ever find us again.”