Chapter Four.
Dick to the Rescue.
“Gracious heavens! The boy will be drowned!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, wringing her hands frantically and rushing forward at once; while Nellie, equally excited, burst into tears, clinging to her aunt’s side. “Oh, what shall I say to his mother? He’s lost; he’s lost!”
“No, he isn’t—not a bit of it; no more drowned than I am,” cried the Captain, laying his hand on Mrs Gilmour’s arm, and putting both her and Nellie back, to prevent any rash impulse on their part. “You just keep as cool as the young rascal must be now! I’ll fish him out in another minute, if you’ll leave me alone; and, he’ll be none the worse, barring a wetting.”
With these words, the spry old gentleman, who was more active than many a younger man, began making his way cautiously down the treacherous slope of the rampart, aided by his trusty malacca cane, poking his stick between the niches of the stonework to act as a stay, and so prevent his slipping on too fast.
But, quick as he was in his movements, hardly had he made a dozen sliding steps down the decline, the action of the whole scene being almost instantaneous, when he felt, rather than saw, some one else glide swiftly past him still more expeditiously; and then, there was another heavy plunge in the
water below, where Bob and Rover were struggling for dear life.
“Bless my soul!” ejaculated the Captain, halting abruptly with the assistance of his sheet anchor, the malacca cane, as he half turned round. “The woman’s never such a fool!”
He thought it was Mrs Gilmour.
But, he was mistaken.
Dick had anticipated them both.
Bob’s unlucky slip and cry of alarm as he fell into the sea, his aunt’s exclamation of terror, the Captain’s movement to the rescue, and the grateful Dick’s perilous jump, for it was almost a leap from the top of the castle wall, were all, as has been already pointed out, the work of a moment; the chain of incidents taking much longer to describe than to happen.
So, there, before you could cry ‘Jack Robinson,’ as the Captain afterwards said, two boys, instead of one, were struggling with the dog in the water; and of all these three, to heighten the excitement of the scene, Rover alone was able to swim!
Bob, of course, had plunged in unwittingly, while Dick’s only thought was to help one from whom he had received such unexpected kindness; the lad not having reflected for an instant on the danger of the task he was undertaking.
Now, therefore, although on reaching the water the grateful boy succeeded in carrying out his object of catching hold of Bob, both immediately sank under the surface.
They came up the next moment locked together, spluttering and splattering for breath and holding up their hands for aid, an action which naturally sent them down again; the tide meanwhile sweeping them away from the shore.
Rover was master of the situation—that is, he and the Captain, who by this time had scrambled down to the last ledge of the rampart, and took in the position of affairs at a glance.
“Hi, Rover, good dog, fetch them out!” cried the old sailor, at the same moment throwing off his coat and preparing to go into the sea, too, if need be. “Fetch ’em out!”
But, there was no necessity for this appeal to Rover, who did not require any orders or directions as to his duty.
The dog, like the Captain, was quite aware of the perilous position of his young master, and had already determined in his own mind what was best to be done under such circumstances.
Master Bob having come down flop on top of him as he was trying to clamber out, had in the first instance somewhat obscured his faculties; and the subsequent appearance of Dick on the scene, as he was just recovering from this douche, did not tend to make matters clearer to the retriever, whose eyes and ears were full of water, besides being moreover tired out by his previous exertions.
Any hesitation poor Rover might have felt, though, barely lasted an instant; for, the sight of two figures battling for life in the sea there under his very nose, and the knowledge that one of these was his young master, brought in an instant all his sagacious instincts into play.
He did not need the Captain or anybody else to tell him what to do. Not he!
Giving his head a quick shake to clear his eyes and uttering a short, sharp bark, as if to say, ‘Hold on, my boys, I’m coming to help you!’ the dog appeared to scramble through the water by a series of leaps, rather than to swim, towards the spot where the two unfortunates were struggling.
Reaching the pair, he at once gripped Bob’s collar in his powerful teeth and proceeded to tow him to land, Dick hanging on behind; and Rover’s muzzle was already turned shorewards, dragging his double burthen astern ere the Captain’s cry of encouragement came to his ears, although on hearing it the noble animal redoubled his efforts.
It was, however, a terrible ordeal; nay, almost a hopeless one!
Had the boys been conscious, Rover would have had comparatively easy work of it, as then one of them might have held on to his collar and the other to his tail, and he could have pulled them both out without much trouble; as it was, now, they clung so frantically to each other and to him that they retarded in lieu of assisting his gallant attempt to save them.
But, help was at hand.
Just as the Captain called out, a couple of coastguardsmen were coming round the corner of the castle on their beat towards the east pier; and, hearing his shout to Rover, they stopped.
“Hullo!” cried one of the men, observing that Mrs Gilmour was in a state of great agitation, with Nellie sobbing beside her and the Captain at the bottom of the sloping rampart in the act of taking off his coat—“Anything wrong, mum?”
Mrs Gilmour’s heart was so full that she could not speak at once, and the man who addressed her jumped to a wrong conclusion from the absence of any explanation at the moment.
“Oh, I see, mum, he’s a-going to commit sooacide? We’ll soon spoil his little game, mum. Bear a hand, Bill, will ye?”
So saying, the speaker and his comrade, with a catlike ease that came naturally to them from their practice at sea, where they had a rolling deck beneath their feet much more difficult to traverse than the slippery slope they were now on, had reached the spot where the coatless old sailor stood almost as these words were uttered, leaping down the steep descent in a sort of ‘hop-skip-and-jump’ fashion.
“None o’ that!” exclaimed the elder of the two men who had previously spoken, grasping hold of one of the Captain’s arms while his mate, or ‘Bill,’ caught hold of the other. “A-going to make away with yourself, eh? Not if we knows it, sir!”
At the same instant, however, Captain Dresser turned round with a face on which the animated expression produced by his determination to try and rescue the boys was mingled with a puzzled look of astonishment at being tackled in this unceremonious manner when on the very point of action.
His black eyes twinkled and his bushy eyebrows moved up and down at a fine rate as he looked up indignantly to see who had dared to lay hand on him.
“My stars!” ejaculated the coastguardsman Bill, dropping hold of the Captain’s arm as if it had been a hot poker, “I’m blest if it ain’t the old cap’en!”
The other man also recognised him at the same time, releasing the old man equally hurriedly.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “Didn’t know it wer’ you, sir!”
But the Captain made no reply to this apology.
He only pointed to the water just below where they were standing, and where the head of Rover could be dimly seen in the gathering dusk of the evening, now rapidly closing in, splashing his way to the shore.
“Boys—save—quick—drown!” he stammered out brokenly. “Quick, quick!”
The men did not require any further explanation or incentive.
Without stopping to doff a garment, in they both plunged, boots and all; and, before the Captain knew that they were gone from his side, they had reached poor Rover, now quite exhausted, gallant dog though he was!
Then, one of the men grasping hold of Bob and the other catching hold of Dick, they swam with the two boys between them, still locked together, to the end of the rampart wall that jutted out over the water.
Here the Captain was ready and waiting to lean over and lend them a hand, keeping the while a steady purchase to his feet by the aid of his malacca stick, which possibly had never been of such service before; and, presently, the coastguardsmen, the boys, and Rover, who would not let go his young master’s collar and was lifted out along with him, were all once more again on firm ground.
By this time, a small crowd of spectators had collected on the spot, composed principally of persons who had come out for a walk round the castle and had their attention arrested by the scene passing in the water below.
The majority of these now, in company with Mrs Gilmour and Nellie, hurried to the lower part of the rampart, which, on the side nearer the harbour, did not shelve down there so abruptly, broadening out by degrees to a wide flat surface where it joined the esplanade bordering the beach.
At this spot, the coastguardsmen laid down the rescued boys, who were quite insensible from their long immersion; when Rover, at length satisfied that his young master was ashore and in safe hands, was persuaded to loose his grip of Bob’s collar, contenting himself by venting his joy in a series of bounds and barks around his inanimate form and licking his apparently lifeless face.
Both Mrs Gilmour and the weeping Nellie thought they were dead.
“Poor boys!” sobbed the former, her tears falling in sympathy with those of the little girl, who was too stunned to speak. “But, what shall I say to Bob’s mother? How can I tell her he is drowned?”
“Drowned? Not a bit of it—no more drowned than you are!” repeated the Captain, somewhat snappishly, his anxiety and excitement preventing him from speaking calmly, as he turned and bent over the inanimate bodies. “Help me, men, to rouse them back to life.”
The coastguardsmen bent down, too, and lifting the boys up were proceeding to lay them down again on their faces, when the Captain stopped them.
“You idiots!” he exclaimed. “What are you going to do, eh?”
“Why, to let the water run out of ’em, sir,” replied the elder of the two, looking up in his face and touching his forelock with his finger in proper nautical salute. “Ain’t that right, sir?”
“Hullo! that you, Hellyer?” cried the old gentleman, recollecting him as a former coxswain. “Glad to see you again. By Jove, you came just now in the very nick of time to save these youngsters! Excuse me though; but, you’ve got hold of the same foolish idea a lot of other people have, that turning a poor half-drowned body upside down to empty him, as if he were a rum-cask, is the best way to recover him!”
“What should we do, sir?” asked the man with a grin. “I allers thought it were the right thing, sir?”
“Why, turn the poor fellows slightly a one side and then rub them smartly to restore the circulation,” said the Captain promptly, suiting the action to the word; and, the next instant, he and the men were busily shampooing the boys till their arms ached. “Rub away, Hellyer; rub away!”
Rover growled at first on their touching Bob, apparently thinking the operation to mean an attack on his young master—he didn’t mind what they did to Dick. But, presently he altered his opinion on the subject, helping so far as he could by means of barking and licking Bob’s face and feet alternately to bring him back to consciousness.
In a short space, although to the anxious onlookers it seemed hours, the efforts of the Captain and coastguardsmen were rewarded by Bob drawing a deep breath, which, it must be confessed, was sadly impregnated with the odour of tobacco from the air which Hellyer had puffed into his lungs to induce respiration!
This tobacco made poor Bob cough, but it likewise caused him to get rid of the greater portion of the sea-water he had swallowed; and after that, he opened first one eye and then the other and, finally, his mouth, exclaiming, much to the delight of Rover, who was just then in the act of licking his face, “Good dog!”
“Bravo!” cried the Captain, stopping his shampooing process on Bob’s body and rubbing his own hands instead, in great glee. “Now we’ll do!”
As for Mrs Gilmour and Nellie, they expressed their delight by almost hugging the little newly-recovered life out of Bob and giving way to fresh tears, only this time they cried for joy and not from grief; while Rover could not contain himself, whining in a sort of hysterical fashion between his loud yelps, and jumping up on every one around as if to say, “Oh, I am so glad, my young master’s all right again!”
Aye, Bob was soon all right, getting on his feet and being able to stand without assistance, the only effect of his ducking being that he looked pale, as far as could be seen in the twilight.
He was, besides, most unmistakably, as wet as a drowned rat!
Dick took a little longer time to recover; but, shortly afterwards, he, too, was himself once more.
When things had arrived at this happy stage, the Captain, who had been put in a fidget by the crowd clustering round—‘a pack of star-gazing fools’ as he whispered pretty audibly to Mrs Gilmour—thought it was time to make a move.
“Hellyer, you and your shipmate had better call round at my house in the morning,” he said to his old coxswain, the elder of the two coastguardsmen. “You know my house, eh, the same old place?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the man, saluting as before. “We knows it well enough!”
“Then, good-night to you, and thank you both for your timely assistance,” said the Captain, turning away with a touch to the brim of his hat in acknowledgment of their salute. “Come on, boys, you’ll have to hurry home fast to prevent catching cold after your swim.”
So saying and offering his arm to Mrs Gilmour, who was feeling faint after all the anxiety she had gone through, the brisk old gentleman led the way round the castle.
He insisted that Bob and Dick should run races across the common on their way towards the south parade, in which gymnastic display Miss Nellie and Rover both joined, for company sake as well as to set a good example; the big black retriever going over more ground than either of the competitors ere they reached ‘The Moorings,’ as Mrs Gilmour’s house was christened.
“Won’t you come in?” said Mrs Gilmour on their getting to the door, when the Captain raised his hat in token of adieu. “Do come in and have a rest, me dear Captain?”
“No, thanks, not up to cribbage to-night,” he replied, shaking his head and chuckling. “Feel my old bones too sore from sliding down that confounded rampart. I mustn’t keep you chattering here, however, for you’ve got to see about those youngsters. You are sure you don’t mind the trouble of putting up my foundling Dick for the night, eh?”
“I should think not, especially after his jumping into the sea so nobly after Bob; and the poor boy, sure, not able to swim either!” said she warmly. “Dick shall not only stop in my house to-night, but as long as you please to let him, I tell you; and sure it’s always grateful I’ll be to him.”
“Well, then,” cried the Captain, “there’s no use my stopping yarning here like an old woman now that point is settled. You’d better go and see after the boys at once.”
“Oh, I’ll say after them,” she answered, laughing at his impatience, as he almost pushed her within the doorway and rushed down the steps towards the gate—“I’ll say after them, never fear!”
“Mind you put them between the blankets, and give them each something hot to drink when they turn in,” he shouted back over the railings. “I’ll come round in the morning and give them a lecture to wake ’em up!”
With these last words, off he went; his malacca cane coming down with a thump on the pavement at every third step he took, until the sound died away in the distance—“Stump, Stump, Thump!—Stump, stump, Thump!—Stump, stump, Thump!”