A peculiar splashing sound arose, and the middy could just make out the dim shape of his companion climbing, or rather dragging, himself on to the slimy rock, whose top was about a foot above the surface of the water.
“Stop a minute or two first,” said the middy, “so as to take—”
He was going to say “breath,” but before the word could be uttered Aleck, who had drawn himself up to stand erect, felt his feet gliding from under him, and it was only by a violent effort that he escaped falling heavily upon the weed-covered rock. As it was he came down with a tremendous splash into the water, going head first in a sharp incline down and down, while, obeying his first impulse, he struck out sharply.
The middy was about to obey his first impulse too, and that was not to pay out, but begin to haul his comrade back. His hands tightened round the line, but as he awoke to the fact that it was gliding through his hands in obedience to the regular pulsation of the movements of a swimmer, he felt that all must be right, and waited while, foot by foot, the rope glided on and the transparent water grew more and more agitated and strange to see.
Once he fancied he could clearly make out Aleck’s steadily swimming figure, but directly after he knew it was a great, waving, flag-like mass of weed fronds, and he uttered an impatient gasp and turned cold.
“He couldn’t have got his breath for the dive,” he said to himself, “and the current must be taking him helplessly away. Half the line must have run out, and perhaps he’s insensible. No; that means swimming, for it goes in jerks, and—he has stopped. He must be through. Hooray! Well done, old—oh, that’s the signal to pull him back!”
It was surely enough, and the middy began at once to haul in, and then the cold feeling became a chill of horror, for he had drawn the rope quite tight at the second haul, and it was perfectly evident that the swimmer had signalled because in some way he was caught fast.
What to do?
The middy was energetic enough, and in those perilous moments, full of horror for his companion’s sake, he hauled till he dared pull no more for fear that the rope should part, and, obeying now a sudden thought, he relaxed the strain, and the rope seemed to be snatched back towards Aleck.
“That can’t be a signal,” he said to himself, in despair; but he began to haul again, recovered the line lost, and to his intense delight he found that the swimmer was once more free, and that he was drawing him rapidly back to where he stood. The lad’s action was as rapid now as he could pass hand over hand, and in a very short space of time he had the poor fellow close up to the rock edge, and then, taking hold of the rope where it passed round Aleck’s chest, he dragged him out, half insensible, upon the rocks.