By sunset Farrell returned with an armful of sun-dried fibre.
We hauled the boat high again and he began caulking her lower seams,
that already had started to close.
"'She'll keep afloat now for a few hundred yards,' he announced after
a while. 'Let's launch her again and run her round the point and
beach her. I left a bundle of bark there that, early to-morrow,
we'll cut in strips and tack over the seams, and she'll do fine to
carry us home.'
"'Home?' echoed I grimly.
"'You know what I mean, you blighter!' he snarled. 'Oh, for God's
sake, no--we mustn't start bickering alongside of _that_!' He forced
his eyes to look down again at the corpse, and shuddered.
'The tide's going down, too.'
"'It won't go down far enough to uncover _him_: and that you ought to
have sense to know," said I.
"'But the farther it goes down the nearer he'll come up, or seem to,'
he argued.
"'Well, night's coming on, and you won't see him,' I suggested,
playing on his nerves.
"'D'you think I'll sit here in the dark, alongside of--oh, hurry, you
devil! Hurry!'
"I chuckled at this.
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