His victim could only gasp and shiver.
"What must we look like from the shore?" Gage demanded savagely.
Peckover made no reply, but from his manner it might have been gathered that his mental attitude on the subject was one of complete indifference.
"Haven't we had enough of this tommy-rot?" at last he ventured to suggest.
Gage was maintaining a fine show of keeping afloat in the four-foot-six. "I think we have," he returned. "I'm getting chilly, so we had better come to business. Now, will you keep down in the water when you've quite done advertising the fact that it isn't up to our shoulders?"
All the response Peckover made was—"Look at the punt!"
Keeping the corner of an eye warily on his companion, Gage turned and looked. The distance between them and the punt instead of a few feet was now some twenty yards. The cause of this alteration was obvious. Their struggles had caused the cord which made fast the craft to one of the poles to become untied and the other pole to work loose. There was some wind, under which the punt was now moving at a fair pace over the lake, dragging one pole with it.
"All right," said Gage, "I'll soon catch it and bring it back."
But Peckover clutched him with the tenacity of despair. "No, you don't," he exclaimed, anxiously resolute. "You don't leave me here. How am I to get ashore if you don't come back?"
"Walk," answered Gage, trying to free himself.