Page:Cruise of the Dry Dock.djvu/113

 Mulcher arose and started on his errand.

Caradoc stared. “You don't intend to swim that distance—through this heat?”

“There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps.”

“And the crew?”

“It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening and morning breezes—it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work herself out of the Sargasso.”

“Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible.”

Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the navvy, on the qui vive over this new undertaking.

“Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir,” suggested Hogan, “an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a dangerous swim.”

“An' the sharks, Meester Madden,” warned Deschaillon.

As Madden kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping likewise. Then Farnol Greer