Colin, with a similar grateful ejaculation, suspended his stroke, and stood upon his feet.
All three instinctively faced seaward, as they did so, exclaiming:
“Poor Old Bill!”
“In troth, we might have brought him along with us!” suggested Terence, as soon as he had recovered his wind; “might we not?”
“If we had but known it was so short a swim,” said Harry, “it is possible.”
“How about our trying to swim back? Do you think we could do it?”
“Impossible!” asserted Colin.
“What, Colin, you are the best swimmer of us all! Do you say so?” asked the others, eager to make an effort for saving the old salt, who had been the favourite of every officer aboard the ship.
“I say impossible,” replied the cautious Colin; “I would risk as much as any of you, but there is not a reasonable chance of saving him, and what’s the use of trying impossibilities? We’d better make sure that we’re safe ourselves. There may be more deep water between us and the shore. Let us keep on till we’ve set our feet on something more like terra firma.”
The advice of the young Scotchman was too prudent to be rejected; and all three, once more turning their faces shoreward, continued to advance in that direction.