"I suppose so, but I don"t know. It was all one horrible confusion."
"Yes; but another few yards, I expect, and you would have been safe, and could have pulled me through, or helped me as I swam."
"Perhaps," said Aleck, rather slowly, for he felt confused still. "But what are you doing?"
"Peeling off my clothes."
"What for?" said Aleck, speaking now with more animation.
"To do my turn, and see how I get on."
"No, no, no!" cried Aleck, excitedly. "You mustn"t try. It"s too horrible."
"Horrible? Nonsense. It"s only a swim in the dark. I like diving."
"I tell you it can"t be done, sailor," cried Aleck, angrily. "The risk is too great. I should have been drowned if you had not hauled me out."
"Well, and if I"m going to be drowned you"ll haul me out. You"re strong enough now, aren"t you?"
"Oh, yes; but you mustn"t risk it."
"You wait till I get these things off, my lad, and I"ll show you. Why, you"d have done it splendidly if you had dived off the rock instead of going in flip-flap like a sole out of a basket. I"ll show you how to do it."
"You"d better take my word for it that it can"t be done. Let"s wait till the tide"s low enough, and then swim out in daylight."
"You wait till I get out of my uniform," said the middy, stubbornly, "I"ll show you, my fine fellow. I"ve practised diving a good deal.
Some day, if we get to the right place in the ocean, I mean to have a go down with the sponge divers, and if I"m ever in the South Seas I mean to try diving for pearl sh.e.l.l."
"Well," said Aleck, rather sadly, "I"ve warned you, and I suppose it is of no use for me to say any more?"
"Not a bit," said the middy, dragging off his second stocking. "You make fast the dry end of the line round my n.o.ble chest. Not too tight, mind, and a knot that won"t slip."
The young sailor possessed the greater will power now, for Aleck was yet half stunned by what he had gone through. He obeyed every order he received, and carefully knotted on the rope.
"Now, are you ready?" said the middy. "Feel up to hauling me back if I don"t get through?"
"Yes."
"And, mind, when I am through I shall not drag you. No, no, don"t untie your end of the rope; you"ll want that. Now, do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Very well, then, as soon as I"m through I shall get on a dry rock and signal to you to come. Then you"ll slip in and swim to the rock again, and take a header off it. Don"t bungle it this time, and when you feel my touch at the rope, mind it"s not meant to haul, only to guide you to where I"m sitting."
"But what about our clothes?" said Aleck, drearily.
"Bother our clothes! We want to save our skins and not our clothes.
Now, then, ready?"
"Yes, if you will go."
"Will go? Look here!"
The lad sprang, feet foremost, into the water, and rose directly from out of the depths, to strike out, and as Aleck tried hard to follow his movements, he heard him reach the weedy rock, drag himself out, and the rope was gently drawn more and more through his hands as the middy succeeded in getting erect upon the stone, close to its edge.
"See that?" he shouted.
"Yes."
"That"s what you ought to have done. Now, then, slacken the line well.
I"m taking a long, deep breath, ready for you know what. That"s it.
Ready--ho!"
The middy sprang into the air, and very dimly Aleck saw that he curved himself over, and the next moment his hands divided the water, and he plunged in for his dive almost without a splash, while as the rope ran swiftly through his hands Aleck felt a flash of energy run through him, and stood ready for any emergency that might befall.
Then a feeling akin to jealousy came over him, as he found the rope drawn out vigorously, and it seemed to him that the midshipman was a far better swimmer and diver than he.
"But he hasn"t come to the difficult part yet," he thought, the next moment. "He"ll find that he can"t keep down deep, and that while he is trying to beat the tangling wrack to right and left something like a current sucks him upward and forces him against the rocks that form the arch."
Then, full of eagerness so as to be ready to help the diver when his time of extremity came, Aleck held the rope attached to him with both hands gingerly enough to let it pa.s.s easily through as wanted, but at the same time, in the most guarded way, ready to let it fall against his right shoulder when, as he intended, he turned sharply to walk swiftly back into the interior of the cavern and draw his companion back to the water"s edge.
Then a curious thought struck him, consequent upon the rope beginning to run out faster and faster.
"Why, he"s getting through," he cried, mentally, with a suggestion of disappointment in his brain at his comrade"s better success. "He"s getting through, and he"ll run out all the line quickly now and draw me in.
"Well, so much the better," he thought. "If he can pa.s.s through I can, and perhaps in a few moments we shall both have escaped.
"Wish I"d done something about our clothes," he muttered then. "We shall want them, of course. But, I know; we can hide somewhere about the mouth of the cave till it gets dark, and then I can take him up to the Den, and--"
Aleck did not finish the plan he was thinking out, for the rope had seemed to him to be running out to a far greater extent than he had taken it himself; but in reality it had gone away at about the same rate, so that something like the same quant.i.ty had been drawn through his hands when it suddenly ceased to glide, and directly after a spasm shot through the lad"s brain, for it had stopped, and directly after the signal was given sharply, sending a thrill through him.
He responded directly by clutching the rope tightly and beginning to run.
It was only a beginning, for he was brought up short on the instant, and so sharply that he was jerked backwards.
"Just the same as I must have been," he said to himself, excitedly, after bearing hard against the rope and finding it quite fast. "It"s like conger fishing," he thought, "and I must give him line."
Slackening out at once, he waited for a moment or two, and then tightened again, when to his great delight he found that he was no longer dragging at something set hard, but at a yielding body, which he drew easily to the edge of the pool by means of his long coil, before dropping it and running to seize and repeat the middy"s performance upon himself.
"He"s quite insensible," he gasped, as he drew the dripping lad right out on to the driest part.
"That I"m not," panted the middy; "but another minute would have done it."
He remained silent then, panting hard and struggling to recover his breath, while Aleck untied the line and set his chest at liberty to act as it should.
Then for some minutes nothing was said, the only sound heard being the middy"s hoa.r.s.e breathing as he laboured hard to recover his regular inspirations.
At last he spoke in an unpleasantly harsh, ill-humoured way.