"Oh, Dick!" he cried, bursting into a passion of tears, all the more vehement now from his ever having been a manly boy and in the habit of stifling all such displays of emotion, even when severely hurt, as had happened on more than one occasion in a football scrimmage at school, whence he got the name of Stoic amongst his mates. "Oh, Dick, poor Dick! I'm sorry I made you come with me to your death! I wonder what my mother and dad will say, and Nell too, when they come to learn that we are lost?" "Don't 'ee now, Master Bob, give way like that!" said Dick, the brave lad, forgetting his own sad plight on seeing his unhappy comrade's alarm and grief. "Cheer up, Master Bob, like a good sort! We bean't lost yet, ye knows!" "I'm afraid we are, Dick! I'm afraid we are!" sobbed Bob, as the pair of unfortunates got gradually wetter and more miserable, if that were possible; the density of the atmosphere around them increasing so that it seemed as if they were enveloped in a drenching cloud, this mist of the sea being the offspring of the waters, and consequently taking after its humid parent. "Why, we're miles and miles away from land, and drifting further and further off every moment! Oh, Dick, we're lost-- we're lost!" "Now, don't 'ee, Master Bob, don't 'ee!" cried Dick, folding one of his arms, like a mother, round the other's neck and drawing him towards him to comfort him. "We ain't a bit lost yet, I tell 'ee, sure-ly. Why, we ain't at sea as you says at all. We be ounly in the h'offin' hereabouts." This woke up Bob to argument. "Only the offing, you say, Dick?" he replied, with some of his old dogmatism as they drifted on and on, the ebb-tide that was bearing them away on its bosom lapping against the sides of the boat with a melancholy sound, though almost deadened by the oppressiveness of the damp sea-fog. "Do you know how wide the Channel is `hereabouts,' as you say?" "No, Master Bob," said the other lad humbly. "I doesn't. I ain't no scholard, as you knows." "Then, I'll tell you," rejoined Bob triumphantly. "It must be nearly a hundred miles wide here between the French and English coasts!" Dick, however, was not abashed by this broad statement. "That mebbe, Master Bob," he replied modestly, scratching the back of his neck where one of his damp locks of hair tickled him at the moment. "But, I heard the Cap'en say ounly t'other day as how there was so many ships a-passing up and down as a boat adrift wer' bound to be sighted!" "But, suppose a hundred ships passed us," said Bob, who would not be comforted, in spite of all Dick's efforts. "Why, old chap, they couldn't see us! The fog would prevent them!" "Lor', so her would!" assented Dick, unable to gainsay this argument. "I forgets that, I did, sure-ly!" After a time, Bob's sobs ceased and he began to think of something else; something that affected him, for the moment, even more strongly than his fears.