The fourth grinned to himself, and said nothing. He was not greatly concerned. He knew his skipper well enough, you see.
“She’s goin’! There she goes!” sang out one of the men.
All eyes were bent on the ship. Her row of lights gave a great heave up, then rapidly disappeared. A heavy, booming cavernous plunge, and then a great volume of white water shot upward in the dimness.
The Baleka had disappeared; but the lives of those on board her were saved so far—all but one.
All but one, we repeat, for the other life which that one had been sacrificed to save was safe too, for at that moment the missing child was being transferred from the boat into which it had been handed in the scurry to the one which contained its still unconscious mother.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Rusted Pistol.
Down—down into the far depths, the weight of a world of water pressing ever down; suffocation, the bursting of myriad stars in a black, roaring sky; then upward, as though hurled by some giant catapult—and—air once more!