“Then go and fetch the lads and a rope. Don’t let me fall into this cursed, watery hell!”
“If I quit my hold here, man, you will both go down; unless help comes, nothing can be done.”
“Then, call help! Call help now, captain, and I’ll be your slave! Curse him for leaving me here! Where’s Joe Thorpe?”
“He was killed by Mazzard with a blow meant for me,” said the buccaneer, slowly.
“Curse him! Curse him!” shrieked the man. “Oh, captain, save me, and I’ll kill him for you! He wants to be skipper; and I’ll kill him for you if you’ll only—Ah!”
He uttered a despairing shriek, for as he spoke a sharp tearing sound was heard; the cloth he clung to gave way, and before he could get a fresh hold he was hanging suspended by the half-torn-off garb. He swung to and fro as he uttered one cry, and then there was an awful silence, followed by a plunge far below.
The water seemed to hiss and whisper and echo in all directions, and the silence, for what seemed quite a long space, was awful. It was, however, but a few instants, and then there was a terrific splashing as if a number of horrible creatures had rushed to prey upon the fallen man, whose shrieks for help began once more.
Appeals, curses, yells, piteous wails, followed each other in rapid succession as the water was beaten heavily. Then the cries were smothered, there was a gurgling sound, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed as it seemed to play against the stony walls of the place.
A few moments and the cries recommenced, and between every cry there was the hoarse panting of a swimmer fighting hard for his life as he struck out.
The buccaneer’s eyes stared wildly down into the great cenote, or water-tank, whose vast proportions were hidden in the gloom. He could see nothing; but his imagination supplied the vacancy, and pictured before him the head and shoulders of his treacherous follower as he swam along the sides of the great gulf, striving to find a place to climb up; and this he did, for the hoarse panting and the cries ceased, and from the dripping and splashing it was evident that he had found some inequality in the wall, by means of which he climbed, with the water streaming from him.