Their position was plainly growing more and more untenable. Already their heads felt as if they would burst from the intense heat and stuffiness of the hold. Then, too, their long fast had made them weak. Queer buzzings sounded in their ears. Shapes, that they knew were unreal, flitted through the darkness, like forms compounded of greenish, luminous smoke.
And still the tug raced along. The roar of her laboring engines filled the little craft, making her quiver from stem to stern.
"Wonder where on earth she can be?" thought Jack, in a dull sort of semi-stupid voice.
"I dinna ken, an' before long it willna' matter to us, anyhow," was Sandy's miserable response. All his fund of hopefulness had vanished.
As if in mockery at his words, the rats squeaked louder than ever as he uttered them. Their little bright eyes darted here and there in the darkness before the boys' swimming vision, like thousands of crazy fireflies. Clearly, if help did not come soon, there would be two less among the company the tug was carrying across Lake Huron, at racing speed.
CHAPTER VIII.
A TOUR OF EXPLORATION.
"Hullo, the motion of the tug seems to have stopped."
The thought filtered dully through Sandy's benumbed mind. For some minutes, indeed, the speed had been sensibly slackening, but in the lads' deplorable circumstances, they were neither of them in a condition to be speedily aware of the fact.
"Jack! Jack!" hailed Sandy, eager to announce his news. But no answer came out of the darkness. Poor Jack lay unconscious on the floor of the hold. He had given way under the strain and stifling heat.