For a time, undoubtedly, the tide carried us shorewards, leisurely and with no affectation of charity. The wreck sunk and disappeared behind us: was a wreck--a bulwark--a stile in mid-desert--a post--a stump--was gone. We distanced it so slowly that scarce a quarter of a mile could have separated us from it when its last token was submerged--and our hearts seemed to founder with it. “Harry!” I cried, in a sudden shock of terror: “what if, at this rate, we never reach the shore at all, and are carried out again by the ebb!” He wriggled and snarled. “What’s the use of meeting trouble half-way? We’ve four or five hours before us, and if we can’t drift close enough by then to finish swimming, the deuce is in it. Hold tight, Dicky--that’s all you’ve got to do; and I’ll answer for the rest.” His self-confidence soothed me supremely. And I was the more comforted to see Joshua stir himself at that moment and sit upright. “What’s that?” he said. “Leave me out of the question if you want to swim.” “We don’t want to swim, Mr. Pilbrow--not unless the tide won’t serve us to the end; and then I hope it’ll be only a little way.” “Well,” he answered, “go when you will; only I want to have a word with you first, Richard.” “You are all right again, sir?” “Right?” he muttered. “I don’t know. The land drops and flees before me. The cold is in my heart. I must ease it, Richard--I must ease it of its secret load before that winter gets home.” “O, don’t talk like that!” I complained. “It’s to flout Providence in the face after this mercy.” “Well,” he said, with a melancholy smile, “I shall be lighter anyhow for the easing. With this weight continuing in me, I should sink like a plumb.” “There’s to be no thought of sinking, Mr. Pilbrow,” I said. “But if there’s something you’ll feel the better for ridding yourself of, why say it and have done.” He turned stiffly in his place so that the spar rocked, and looked at me, where I sat behind him, with a most yearning affection. “If you were entitled to the truth before,” he said, “how much more now, when you have saved my life.” “Saved your life!” I exclaimed. “Didn’t you!” he answered. “Didn’t you risk your own by letting go to reach me, when I might have pulled you down?” “O, nonsense!” I cried, with a real laugh. “We should have both been in a bad way, I dare say, if Harry hadn’t had the sense to catch my foot. He towed us in. If there’s any credit it’s to him.” “He did the resourceful thing, and you the brave,” persisted Joshua. “I owe to him through you; but to you first. If I live, I will honour that debt. If I am to die----” “In good time, Mr. Pilbrow!” I cried reassuringly. “This little contest had flushed and rallied us all. “In good time! We aren’t going to give up, I can assure you, having come so far as this.” “By God’s providence!” answered the ex-bookseller, with unwonted devoutness. “Only I feel that while I delay to tell you, the devil struggles to hale me into the deeps.”