“But you’ll go to the bottom, man, if you don’t come.”
“Well, wot if I do? I’d raither go to the bottom with a brave man, than remain at the top with a set o’ fine fellers like you!”
Some of the men received this reply with a laugh, others frowned, and a few swore, while some of them looked regretfully at their self-willed shipmate; for it must not be supposed that all the tars who float upon the sea are of the bold, candid, open-handed type, though we really believe that a large proportion of them are so.
Be this as it may, the boats left the brig, and were soon far astern.
“Thank you, Lillihammer,” said Harold, going up and grasping the horny hand of the self-sacrificing sea-dog. “This is very kind of you, though I fear it may cost you your life. But it is too late to talk of that; we must fix on some plan, and act at once.”
“The werry thing, sir,” said Disco quietly, “that wos runnin’ in my own mind, ’cos it’s werry clear that we hain’t got too many minits to spare in confabilation.”
“Well, what do you suggest?”
“Arter you, sir,” said Disco, pulling his forelock; “you are capting now, an’ ought to give orders.”
“Then I think the best thing we can do,” rejoined Harold, “is to make straight for the shore, search for an opening in the reef, run through, and beach the vessel on the sand. What say you?”
“As there’s nothin’ else left for us to do,” replied Disco, “that’s ’zactly wot I think too, an’ the sooner we does it the better.”