“Nothing,” gasped Aleck. “I can’t—can’t whistle now.”
But he made another effort to control his quivering tips, mastered them into a state of rigidity, and produced a repetition of the same low, plaintive note that had reached their ears.
Directly after, the whistle was repeated from outside, and, as Aleck produced it once more in trembling tones, the lads leaped to their feet, for, coming as it were right along the surface of the water, as if through some invisible opening, there came the welcome sound:
“Ship ahoy! Master Aleck—a—” suck—suck—flop—flop—a whisper, and then something like a sigh.
“It is Tom Bodger!” cried Aleck, in a voice he did not know for his own, and something seemed to clutch him about the throat, and he knelt there muttering something inaudible to himself.
Chapter Thirty.
Phee-ew! Phee-ew! The peculiar gull-like whistle once more, to run in a softened series of echoes right up into the farthest part of the cavern. Then there came the peculiar sucking, ploshing sound as of water filling up an opening. A minute later “Ship ahoy!” from outside.
“Tom! Ahoy!” yelled Aleck, wildly.