A hand-lamp lashed to a stanchion above a little table rigged up on the bridge--the Patna had no chart-room amidships--threw a light on their labouring shoulders, on their arched and bobbing backs.
They pushed at the bow of the boat; they pushed out into the night; they pushed, and would no more look back at him.

They had given him up as if indeed he had been too far, too hopelessly separated from themselves, to be worth an appealing word, a glance, or a sign.

They had no leisure to look back upon his passive heroism, to feel the sting of his abstention.
The boat was heavy; they pushed at the bow with no breath to spare for an encouraging word: but the turmoil of terror that had scattered their self-command like chaff before the wind, converted their desperate exertions into a bit of fooling, upon my word, fit for knockabout clowns in a farce.

They pushed with their hands, with their heads, they pushed for dear life with all the weight of their bodies, they pushed with all the might of their souls--only no sooner had they succeeded in canting the stem clear of the davit than they would leave off like one man and start a wild scramble into her.

As a natural consequence the boat would swing in abruptly, driving them back, helpless and jostling against each other.