“All fanciful sentiment, Van, my lad. What is there in that poor fellow now to excite our fear? Come, you must be more manly than that. Cold?”
“Yes; very, now.”
“So am I, my lad. These wet things are not comfortable. We’ll take to the oars and row for a bit to keep off the chill. Why, Vandean, you ought to be well praised for this night’s work. I feel quite ashamed of myself for letting you suggest a way out of our difficulty with the capsized boat.”
“Oh, it was nothing, sir. It just occurred to me,” replied Mark.
“I wish it had just occurred to me, my lad; and what is more, I wish we could see the Nautilus coming towards us with the slave schooner astern, but there is no such good fortune in store for us till morning.”
By this time the water was getting very low in the bottom of the boat, and ordering the coxswain aft to steer, the lieutenant took the oar of Tom Fillot, who was rowing stroke, sent him forward, and then made Mark take the oar of the next man. They both pulled steadily together for the next half hour, Mr Russell telling the coxswain how to steer, so as to keep steadily in the wake of the Nautilus, which had now for long enough been out of sight.
The long row thoroughly circulated Mark’s blood, driving away all the feeling of chill, so that it was with a pleasant glowing sensation that the lad took his place once more in the stern-sheets to sit beside the lieutenant, and with him anxiously look-out ahead in the hope of seeing some sign of the ship.
“She may send up a rocket, mayn’t she, Mr Russell?” said Mark, after a long silence, during which the boat had risen and fallen with the swell, and felt beating with a living pulsation as the men toiled steadily on at their oars.
“Rocket? Well, yes, she may, but I doubt whether we could see it at this distance.”
“Then she is very far-away?”