“He’ll do it,” cried Mullen, excitedly. “What a brave fellow he is! I never could have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“Ah!” suddenly interrupted Major Gordon, as a tremendous billow was seen approaching the swimmer, and forgetting that his warning could not be heard, and would have been useless if it could, he shouted— “Look out, look out!”
For one instant it came on, heaping its mass of waters up continually higher, towering and towering until the spectators fairly ran cold with horror. Then, curling majestically over, away up against the sky, it poured downwards like some huge cataract in one vast mountain of foam, a pistol shot out beyond where the waves usually broke. The swimmer had seen it coming, and had plunged through it with steadfast courage, but apparently in vain; for the shattered waters rolled past him, yet he remained still invisible. Another gigantic wave was seen rising close in the wake of its predecessor, yet he did not emerge. The minutes appeared hours. Then the second wave broke and came on, racing after the other, covering the sea with its whitened fragments.
“It’s the rope that’s dragging him down,” cried Mullen.
“He could have done it alone, but the weight of the line, and the strain on it shorewards, are too much for him. He’ll drown, if we don’t pull him in, and that at once.”
“Hold,” cried Major Gordon, authoritatively, as several sprang to aid Mullen with the rope. “There he comes again. Don’t you see him? He’s alive and safe. But he’s lost way terribly,” he added, “in those two surges.”
“He’s alive, sir,” replied Mullen, “but his strength’s gone. You can see that by the way he swims. He’ll never do it now, sir. The seas are coming in, too, as if they knew what he’s after, and were not going to lose their prey out yonder. What monsters! Every one of ‘em rollers, and chasing each other as if they were wild Indians. The very beach shakes as they break. He swims bravely, but it’s no use. I can see he blows hard. Ha! he goes under; his arms fly up over his head. Pull now, my lads,” he shouted quickly, “pull away, or your comrade will be dead before you get him in.”
Mullen had not exaggerated the peril. It was apparent that the prisoner had struggled long after every rational prospect of success was gone; and that he had succumbed at last only by overtasked nature giving way all at once. Major Gordon, who had watched the struggle for the last five minutes, as if his own life depended on the issue, cheered the men by his example, and taking his station in the very midst of the breakers, stood there, hauling in on the line, and watching for the first indication of the exhausted swimmer.
It required but little more time than we have taken to describe all this, when the apparently lifeless form of Newell made its appearance. Major Gordon grasped it eagerly, but being prostrated at that moment by a breaker, would have been drowned himself, if the two had not been dragged ashore together by those on the beach. He recovered his feet even then with difficulty, and quite breathless; but the swimmer was seemingly dead.
“Turn him over on his face,” cried Mullen, quickly. “Lift up his feet. Now rub him with sand. Every moment is precious.”