"I—don't think—I will try."
Poor Ingestrie did try, but he was really so completely exhausted by the efforts he had made, that it was quite evident that he was unequal to the task of walking along the shingle.
"Give it up," said Ben. "You can't do it."
"He must be carried," said the colonel.
"To be sure he must," said Ben; "and this is the way to do it."
With these words, Ben did not hesitate another moment, but taking Mark Ingestrie in his arms as though he had been an infant, he walked over the pebbly beach with him as easily as though he had been only a very ordinary kind of bundle to carry.
As he went on, it occurred to Ben that Johanna might see him carrying her husband home, and might imagine that some fearful accident had happened to him, so, by way of putting an end to that idea, he kept crying out as he got near the house—
"Here we are! All alive and kicking! It's only a joke. All alive—alive O! Here we are! it's only a joke! All alive! alive! and ready for feeding time!"
CHAPTER CLXXI.
A RATHER IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IS MADE.
The man, who appeared to be the only one at all—dead or alive—who was preserved from the wreck of the ship off the coast of Sussex, was carried to the house where all our friends were staying, and being taken into the kitchen, was there placed in the care of a couple of medical men, who were hastily sent for, and who quickly restored animation to the seemingly drowned person. It was reported to Ingestrie that the stranger was all right, and as he himself had by that time thoroughly recovered, and had changed his saturated apparel for a dry suit, the news gave him the liveliest satisfaction.