le."

"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.

They only knew that they were facing shoreward by the inflow of the
tide, but certain that this would prove a tolerably safe guide, they
kept boldly on, without fear of straying from the track.

For a while they waded; but, as their progress was both slower and more
toilsome, they once more betook themselves to swimming. Whenever they
felt fatigued, by either mode of progress, they changed to the other;
and partly by wading and partly by swimming, they passed through another
mile of the distance that separated them from the shore. The water then
became so shallow that swimming was no longer possible; and they waded
on, with eyes earnestly piercing the darkness, each moment expecting to
see something of the land.

They were soon to be gratified by having this expectation realised. The
curving lines that began to glimmer dimly through the obscurity, were
the outlines of rounded objects that could not be ocean waves. They
were too white for these. They could only be the sand-hills, which they
had seen before the going down of the sun. As they were now but
knee-deep in the water, and the night was still misty and dark, these
objects could be at no great distance and deep water need no longer be
dreaded.

The three castaways considered themselves as having reached the shore.

Harry and Terence were about to continue on to the beach, when Colin
called to them to come to a stop.

"Why?" inquired Harry.

"What for?" asked Terence.

"Before touching dry land," suggested the thoughtful Colin, "suppose we
decide what has been the fate of poor Old Bill."

"How can we tell that?" interrogated t