A chill silence fell on the little group.

The more imaginative among them were calculating the exact kind of lurch taken by the unstable raft that would mean "drowning without a cry." Thus the minutes sped, until a dim shape emerged from the opposite blackness.

It came unheard, growing from nothing into something with ghostly subtlety.

Iris, a prey to many emotions, managed to stifle the exclamation of alarm that rose unbidden.

But Hozier read her distress in a hardly audible sob.
"It is our friend, Marcel," he whispered.