"Yes, jus' so," agreed Marat.
"I want to swim over," I said. "It's only half a mile."
"Ah!" said Jean Marat. "Thad might be. Yes—yes." (He pondered the thing.) "Yes, I swim too, with you."
It was the very thing I had in mind, this idea of his accompanying me, though I hesitated to include him in my suggestion.
"And then," Marat continued, "maybe we hear some theengs thad will help us."
Here, too, was some of my thought, remembering that night when he and I had rowed over to the Orion, in the harbor, and heard Duran say things that had enlightened us very much. Though some of the things he had said had not been at all clear, else Ray and I had been spared that period of captivity.
We were not long in giving our plan to the others. Norris, eager for activity, would like to be one of the party, but he himself found objections the moment his wish was expressed.
"It won't do to have too many," he said; "and then I can't understand the parley voo like Captain Marat."
"Besides," put in Ray, "there'd be an awful hulaboloo among the fish. They'd think it was a—" Norris had him in his grasp. "—A mermaid," finished Ray.
We did not wait long after night had settled over the bay. Jean Marat and I kicked off our clothes and, entering the water, headed for the island. It was chalked out that the others should hold everything in readiness, and if they should hear a signal, they would immediately row out and pick us up, to take up the trail of Duran again.