He would perhaps have found it rather hard pulling, but he was unusually strong for his age, and, in the end, he would have reached the shore. But with a frail raft, loosely put together, and only a board to row or paddle with, his progress was very slow.
He did make a little progress, however, but it was so little that, at the end of fifteen minutes, he seemed as far off from the little cabin on the cliff as ever.
“It’s hard work,” said Robert to himself. “I wish I had a boat. If it were smooth water, I could get along with a raft, but now——”
He stopped short, as the raft was lifted on the crest of a wave, and he nearly slid off into the water.
He looked back to the island and began to consider whether it would not be best, after all, to paddle back and trust to being taken off the next morning by some fisherman’s boat.
No doubt that would have been the most sensible thing to do, but Robert was very reluctant to relinquish his project.
Had he not devoted several hours to constructing the raft he was trying to navigate and should he allow this time to be thrown away?
Again, the prospect of passing a night upon Egg Island was not very inviting. There was nothing to fear, of course, for the island was too small to be infested by wild animals or even snakes. He could no doubt sleep some, even if his bed were not very comfortable.
Robert looked back. By this time he was half a mile, at a rough guess, from Egg Island, and between his raft and the mainland there intervened probably two miles and a half of rough sea.
“If I can get within half a mile of shore,” thought our young hero, “I won’t care for the raft any longer. I will plunge into the waves and swim to the shore.”