The sailor did not finish his speech then, but Rodd did to himself, and hot though he was with his exertions, a cold shiver seemed to run through him, as he mentally said—
“The crocodiles!”
“That’s better, my lads. Just a steady pull, and I’ll keep as I am with the boat-hook. We mustn’t have a capsize.”
“What are you going to do, Joe?” cried Rodd.
“Don’t know, sir,” said the man gruffly. “Perhaps you can tell me.”
“I? No,” cried Rodd.
“Ah! That’s awkward,” said the man. “I don’t know what the skipper was about to set us on this job. That’s the worst of being a sailor. They trains us up to ’bey orders directly they’re guv, and we does them, but one never knows how to be right. I oughter ha’ told the old man as this was more’n men could do; ’cause I half thought it were. But then I says to myself, the skipper knows best; and here we are in a nice hole.”
“A nice hole!” cried Rodd angrily. “Why, we shall be swept out to sea.”
“Looks like it, sir—I mean seems.”
“But why not make for the shore, where we could catch hold of some of the overhanging branches?”