To add to the perplexity of the situation, George was not a good swimmer, and he doubted his ability to make the trip across the channels between the rocks which separated them from the mainland.
"Why not try to find the object we saw while we were out at sea?"
"Good idea. But I would like to know how we are going to get up?"
"Wasn't that a silly trick, to be so careless about our boat. What will the Professor say?"
At last, after repeated trials, they found a way which led them up the craggy sides, to the object they had seen.
"It is our life-boat," was Harry's excited cry. "That is, what is left of it."
We have previously detailed how, when they struck the rock, on that eventful day, months before, the boat had apparently been broken in two, and they saw only the stern of the boat held within a saddle of the rock; and how, at the next great wave, even that portion had disappeared. Here was the battered and broken-up part that remained.
"Do you think this part would float?"
"I suppose it would, but how can we get it down?"
They sat down, not discouraged, but annoyed at their own stupidity and carelessness. Night was approaching, and sitting down would not remedy matters. It was low tide, and the waters had receded, so that the wrecked boat was now fully twenty-five feet from the water. It was held within a wedge in the rocks, tilted up, and it was too heavy for them to lift. If they could possibly dislodge it, so as to push it over the edge, it would probably be crushed to pieces in tumbling down.