“Haul quick, Ede,” shouted Robinson, “or you will drown them, man alive.”
Ede hauled hand over hand, and a train of bubbles was seen making all across the pool toward him. And the next moment two dripping heads came up to hand close together, like cherries on a stalk; and now a dozen hands were at the rope, and the plaintiff and defendant were lifted bodily up on to the flat rock, which came nearly to the water's edge on this side the pool.
“Augh! augh! augh! augh!” gasped Jem.
Walker said nothing. He lay white and motionless, water trickling from his mouth, nose and ears.
Robinson swam quietly ashore. The rocks thundered with cheers over his head.
The next moment, “the many-headed beast” remembered that all this was a waste of time, and bolted underground like a rabbit, and dug and pecked for the bare life with but one thought left, and that was GOLD.
“How are you, Jem?”
“Oh, captain, oh!” gasped poor Jem, “I am choked—I am dead—I am poisoned—why, I'm full of water; bring this other beggar to my tent, and we will take a nanny-goat together.”
So Jem was taken off hanging his head, and deadly sick, supported by two friends, and Walker was carried to the same tent, and stripped and rubbed and rolled up in a blanket; and lots of brandy poured down him and Jem, to counteract the poison they had swallowed.
Robinson went to Mr. Levi, to see if he would lend him a suit, while he got his own dried. The old Jew received my lord judge with a low, ironical bow, and sent Nathan to borrow the suit from another Israelite. He then lectured my lord Lynch.