“No, that we can’t: we won’t!” said Terence.
“We can’t and won’t,” asseverated Colin, with like emphasis.
These generous declarations were in answer to an equally generous proposal in which the sailor had urged them to make for the shore, and leave him to his fate.
“Ye must, my lads!” he cried out, repeating his proposition. “Don’t mind about me; look to yersels! Och! shure I’m only a weather-washed, worn-out old salt, ’ardly worth savin’. Go now, off wi’ ye at onest. The water’ll be over ye, if ye stand ’eer tin minutes longer.”
The three youths scrutinised each other’s faces, as far as the darkness would allow them. Each tried to read in the countenances of the other two some sign that might determine him. The water was already washing around their shoulders; it was with difficulty they could keep their feet.
“Let loose, lads!” cried old Bill; “let loose, I say! and swim richt for the shore. Don’t think o’ me; it bean’t certain I shan’t weather it yet. I’m the whole av my head taller than the tallest av ye. The tide mayn’t full any higher; an’ if it don’t I’ll get safe out after all. Let loose, lads, let loose, I tell ye!”
This command of the old sailor for his young comrades to forsake him was backed by a far more irresistible influence, one against which even their noble instincts could no longer contend.
At that moment a wave, of greater elevation than any that had preceded it, came rolling along; and the three midshipmen, lifted upon its swell, were borne nearly half a cable’s length from the spot where they had been standing.
In vain did they endeavour to recover their feet. They had been carried into deep water, where the tallest of them could not touch bottom.
For some seconds they struggled on the top of the swell, their faces turned towards the spot from which they had been swept. They were close together. All three seemed desirous of making back to that dark, solitary speck, protruding above the surface, and which they knew to be the head of Old Bill. Still did they hesitate to forsake him.