Once more he made an attempt to scale the side, but with no better luck than before. After this he contented himself with treading water for a time, reserving his energies for a final effort.
How much lower was the water going to sink? he wondered. It was twenty feet below the level of the valley now, and its motion had not yet ceased.
He thought nothing of the strangeness of the phenomenon. His mind was centred upon escaping from his alarming predicament.
Suddenly the water began to swirl and eddy. He was expecting each instant to be sucked down into some dark hole, when, with a dull roar, that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, the water foamed upward.
Five minutes later it was as Wilson had found it, a silent, somewhat ghostly-looking pool, scarce a ripple remaining to tell of its recent movement.
Now or never! thought the engineer.
Exerting all his remaining strength, he made a desperate effort to ascend the slippery bank. Again and again he tried, but ever with the same result. Failure, heartbreaking failure! And upon it all, while he rested from his last attempt, the water began to sink again.
At that his courage failed. He had almost decided to let himself sink beneath the surface, and so end the apparently hopeless struggle, when the sound of voices fell upon his ears—the voices of his friends.
The blood rushed madly through his veins at the sound, and a cry for help rang from his lips. An instant later—it seemed an hour to the unfortunate lad—the form of the baronet appeared on the brink of the pool.
“Great Scott!” he cried as he saw Wilson’s white, despairing face looking up at him; then he plunged in to his friend’s assistance.