There was an awed pause.

“Is that agreed to?” asked Farnum, huskily.

“Yes,” came in hoarse whispers.  There was another long silence—­long as time must now be measured, for a breath, now, was as long as an hour on the surface.

It was big Bill Henderson who spoke next.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, “the lord of battles and of spring flowers and breezes is displeased with us.  He is taking this method to punish us as we deserve.  Yet in that punishment we shall find pardon, too.  Though we suffer now, we shall know joy when this life is ended.”

Somehow, the speech stirred up resentment in the minds of the hearers.

“Could any death be more glorious?” demanded the seaman.  “We are blessed with the privilege of serving as our own sacrifices!”

“The poor chap’s mind is going first,” whispered Mr. Farnum, pityingly, to Captain Jack.

“I don’t understand what he’s talking about,” whispered Benson.

“Don’t be surprised at that.  Neither does he know,” muttered Jacob Farnum.

“Are you jesting or mocking,” broke in Henderson, half-angrily, “at the very moment when you should be getting ready for the glory of giving the last gasp of despair?”

“Give the last gasp, if you want to,” retorted Eph, with savage irony, “and let us sit here in peace.”

“Can anyone think,” suggested Jack, “of any possible place in which we have not yet looked for that wrench?”

“I’m—­too—­tired to—­think,” drowsed Hal.

His voice startled the others.  Now, that they came to examine their own conditions a bit more keenly, they began to understand that they, too, were fast sinking into a drowsy state.

Was the coming end, too, to be painless?

“There’s no use looking,” replied Jacob Farnum, in answer to Jack’s question.  “There isn’t a single place left to explore.  We—­”

Whether Mr. Farnum thus broke off because he had lost his thought, or whether he dreaded to say the omitted words, none of the others even troubled to guess.

Bill Henderson started in to sing.  There were a few angry gasps of protest until the others slowly realized that the air sounded like that of some hymn.  The words, however, were in a foreign tongue, picked up in the course of the seaman’s wanderings over the world.

Then their resentment softened.  If Bill preferred to meet the end with a hymn on his lips, perhaps that was the best thing for all of them.

It crept over them, now, that they felt choking sensations, with pain and buzzing in their ears.  Then the end must be near.  Unconsciousness, at any rate.  That loss of the senses would be the end, so far as any of them could know.

“Now, give thanks with your last real thoughts,” cried Bill, hoarsely.  “Gentlemen—­this is—­glorious!  We’re going fast!  The last—­croak—­is upon us!  Good—­bye!”

CHAPTER XIX