"Yes, your eyes, to distinguish the Duncan in this darkness. Come."
"And why my eyes?" said Paganel to himself, delighted, nevertheless, to be of service to Glenarvan.
He rose, shaking his torpid limbs in the manner of one awakened from sleep, and followed his friend along the shore. Glenarvan requested him to survey the dark horizon to seaward. For several moments Paganel conscientiously devoted himself to this task.
"Well, do you perceive nothing?" asked Glenarvan.
"Nothing. Not even a cat could see two paces before her."
"Look for a red or a green light, on the starboard or the larboard side."
"I see neither a red nor a green light. All is darkness," replied Paganel, whose eyes were thereupon involuntarily closed.
For half an hour he mechanically followed his impatient friend in absolute silence, with his head bowed upon his breast, sometimes raising it suddenly. He tottered along with uncertain steps, like those of a drunken man. At last Glenarvan, seeing that the geographer was in a state of somnambulism, took him by the arm, and, without waking him, led him back to his sand-hole, and comfortably deposited him therein.
At break of day they were all started to their feet by the cry,—