Bethune, rising, stretched himself with an apologetic laugh.
“Oh, well,” he said; “I was so cold I felt I didn’t want to do anything.”
“It’s not an uncommon sensation,” Jimmy replied. “The best way to get rid of it is to work. If you’ll shift that cowl, I’ll prime the pump.”
Bethune shuffled forward, and, coming back, pumped for a few strokes. Then he stopped and leaned on the handle.
“You really think we’ll raise the island to-day?” he asked.
“Yes. But it isn’t easy to shoot the sun when you can hardly see it and have a remarkably unsteady horizon. Then, though she has laid her course for the last two days, I haven’t much confidence in the log we’re towing.”
He indicated the wet line that ran over the stern and stretched back to where a gleam of brass was visible in the hollow of a sea.
“What could you expect?” Bethune asked. “We got the thing for half its proper price, and, to do it justice, it goes pretty well after a bath in oil, and when it stops it does so altogether. You know how to deal with a distance recorder that sticks and stays so, but one that sticks and goes on again plays the devil.”
“Talking’s easier than pumping,” Jimmy said suggestively.
“It is, but I feel like working off a few more remarks. They occurred to me while I sat behind the coaming, numbed right through, last night. I suppose you have noticed how the poor but enterprising man is generally handicapped. He gets no encouragement in taking the hard and virtuous path. It needs some nerve to make a start, and afterward, instead of things getting easier, you fall in with all kinds of obstacles you couldn’t reasonably expect. Even the elements conspire against you; it’s always windward work.”