To leave him there was manifestly impossible; but if the schooner again veered round, the jamming of the ice over the head of La Maitre would again occur.

The men on the schooner, not under good discipline, were all shouting and talking.
"He's dead by now, wherever he is." The skipper made this quiet parenthesis either to himself or to Caius.

Then he shouted aloud: "Work your boat through to us!" O'Shea began poling vigorously.

The ice was again floating loosely, and it was but the work of a few minutes to push his heavy boat into the open water that was in the wake of the schooner.

There was a pause, like a pause in a funeral service, when O'Shea, standing ankle-deep in the water which his boat held, and the men huddled together upon the schooner's deck, turned to look at all the places in which it seemed possible that the body of Le Maitre might again be seen.