"Listen, Mary!" he called. "Can you not hear it? There are voices coming up the wind."
They listened. From the lee of the rock came a faint shout. Together they replied. Again the shout and this time astonishingly close.
"There is a boat near," cried Ned. "I caught a glimpse of it through the spray."
With the sudden prospect of rescue, hope leaped up afresh. A new courage entered their minds and a strange new strength their bodies. Both were opportune, for now they entered upon a desperate struggle with successions of formidable waves. They had nearly passed when the black dizziness, that of late had been recurring with alarming frequency, fell suddenly upon Ned. Fainting under the exertion he sank. His head hung over the edge of the rock and only the super-human efforts of his companion prevented him from plunging headlong into the lake.
"Mary!" he cried as consciousness came dimly back. "I have been asleep. Did the roller beat me that time?"
"You were nearly gone," cried the girl faintly.
"How did you ever hold me, dear?"
"I don't know, Ned. But you are here. You cannot stand another. Is the boat near?"
The girl's voice had a terror in it that smote Ned with pity.
The boat at that moment rode through the choppy waves, to shelter at the base of the rock. The instant the prow struck a great figure leaped out of her and scrambled up over the ledge. As it straightened up for the dash to the oak, Ned was amazed to behold the face of Rob McClure. It was distorted by a terror born of no sense of physical danger. There was a poignant agony in his voice as he cried: