By this time the water was getting very low in the bottom of the boat, and ordering the coxswain aft to steer, the lieutenant took the oar of Tom Fillot, who was rowing stroke, sent him forward, and then made Mark take the oar of the next man. They both pulled steadily together for the next half hour, Mr Russell telling the coxswain how to steer, so as to keep steadily in the wake of the _Nautilus_, which had now for long enough been out of sight. The long row thoroughly circulated Mark's blood, driving away all the feeling of chill, so that it was with a pleasant glowing sensation that the lad took his place once more in the stern-sheets to sit beside the lieutenant, and with him anxiously look-out ahead in the hope of seeing some sign of the ship. "She may send up a rocket, mayn't she, Mr Russell?" said Mark, after a long silence, during which the boat had risen and fallen with the swell, and felt beating with a living pulsation as the men toiled steadily on at their oars. "Rocket? Well, yes, she may, but I doubt whether we could see it at this distance." "Then she is very far-away?" "Very, my lad. You see that she is out of sight." "And suppose we have lost sight of her altogether, sir--what then?" "What then? Oh, don't let's calculate upon things that are barely possible. Captains in Her Majesty's service are too particular about their juniors and ship's company to leave a boat's crew in the lurch." "Yes, but Captain Maitland might not be able to find us again, sir." "Come, come, my lad, don't croak like a raven. At your age you ought to be hopeful, and set me an example of high spirits. Don't begin imagining the worst." "Who's going to be hopeful," muttered Tom Fillot to the man behind him, "with the body o' that poor nigger aboard? Strikes me that we're in for a spell o' bad luck, mates." "What's that?" cried the lieutenant. "Only having a bit of a grumble, your honour, about our luck," said the man, respectfully. "We're all feeling as if it was time our watch ended, and as though we'd like a bit o' something to eat and drink. That's all, sir." The man's oar dipped steadily as he spoke, and after that there was a dead silence on board. The last drop of water had been swabbed up and squeezed overboard, and the exercise had helped to dry the men's saturated garments. A steady progress was kept up, and after fighting back a heavy, drowsy feeling, Mark sat watching the setting stars away straight before him in the direction in which the _Nautilus_ had disappeared. Twenty times over it had seemed to him as if the night would never end, and in spite of his officer's cheering utterances, his spirits sank very low, as he wondered whether it would not have been better if the boat's head had been turned, so that they might have rowed due east, to make the land from which they had sailed.