“Wide and deep, Madam,” replied Ayrton; “a mile wide, with an impetuous current. A good swimmer could not go over without danger.”
“Let us build a boat then,” said Robert, who never stuck at anything. “We have only to cut down a tree and hollow it out, and get in and be off.”
“He’s going ahead, this boy of Captain Grant’s!” said Paganel.
“And he’s right,” returned John Mangles. “We shall be forced to come to that, and I think it is useless to waste our time in idle discussion.”
“What do you think of it, Ayrton?” asked Glenarvan seriously.
“I think, my Lord, that a month hence, unless some help arrives, we shall find ourselves still on the banks of the Snowy.”
“Well, then, have you any better plan to propose?” said John Mangles, somewhat impatiently.
“Yes, that the DUNCAN should leave Melbourne, and go to the east coast.”
“Oh, always the same story! And how could her presence at the bay facilitate our means of getting there?”
Ayrton waited an instant before answering, and then said, rather evasively: “I have no wish to obtrude my opinions. What I do is for our common good, and I am ready to start the moment his honor gives the signal.” And he crossed his arms and was silent.