“That’s what you ought to have done. Now, then, slacken the line well. I’m taking a long, deep breath, ready for you know what. That’s it. Ready—ho!”
The middy sprang into the air, and very dimly Aleck saw that he curved himself over, and the next moment his hands divided the water, and he plunged in for his dive almost without a splash, while as the rope ran swiftly through his hands Aleck felt a flash of energy run through him, and stood ready for any emergency that might befall.
Then a feeling akin to jealousy came over him, as he found the rope drawn out vigorously, and it seemed to him that the midshipman was a far better swimmer and diver than he.
“But he hasn’t come to the difficult part yet,” he thought, the next moment. “He’ll find that he can’t keep down deep, and that while he is trying to beat the tangling wrack to right and left something like a current sucks him upward and forces him against the rocks that form the arch.”
Then, full of eagerness so as to be ready to help the diver when his time of extremity came, Aleck held the rope attached to him with both hands gingerly enough to let it pass easily through as wanted, but at the same time, in the most guarded way, ready to let it fall against his right shoulder when, as he intended, he turned sharply to walk swiftly back into the interior of the cavern and draw his companion back to the water’s edge.
Then a curious thought struck him, consequent upon the rope beginning to run out faster and faster.
“Why, he’s getting through,” he cried, mentally, with a suggestion of disappointment in his brain at his comrade’s better success. “He’s getting through, and he’ll run out all the line quickly now and draw me in.
“Well, so much the better,” he thought. “If he can pass through I can, and perhaps in a few moments we shall both have escaped.
“Wish I’d done something about our clothes,” he muttered then. “We shall want them, of course. But, I know; we can hide somewhere about the mouth of the cave till it gets dark, and then I can take him up to the Den, and—”
Aleck did not finish the plan he was thinking out, for the rope had seemed to him to be running out to a far greater extent than he had taken it himself; but in reality it had gone away at about the same rate, so that something like the same quantity had been drawn through his hands when it suddenly ceased to glide, and directly after a spasm shot through the lad’s brain, for it had stopped, and directly after the signal was given sharply, sending a thrill through him.