Commendone was a good swimmer. He had swam and dived in the lake at Commendone since he was a boy. He knew now exactly what to do, and his voice, though half-strangled with the salt water, and his grip of the drowning man's arm-pits had their effect.
There was a half-choked, "Si, Señor," and in twenty to thirty seconds Johnnie lay back in the warm water of the Atlantic, knowing that for a few minutes, at any rate, he could support the man he had come to save.
It was curious that at this moment he felt no fear or alarm whatever. His whole mind was directed towards one thing—that the man he had dived to rescue would keep still. His mouth and nose were just out of the water, when suddenly there came into his mind the catch of an old song.
He heard again the high, delicate notes of the Queen's lute—"Time hath to siluer turn'd...."
Hardly knowing what he did, he even laughed with pleasure at the memory.
As that was heard, a strong, lusty voice came to him.
"I'm here, master, I'm here! We shall not be long now. Ah—ah-h-h!"
Hull, blowing like a grampus, had swam up to them.
"I'll take him, master," he said; "do you rest for a moment. They'll have us out of this 'fore long."
There were no life-belts invented in those days, and to lower a boat from the ship was long in doing. But the St. Iago was brought up with all sails standing, the boat at the stern was let down most gingerly into the sea, and four mariners rowed towards the swimming men. It was near twenty minutes before Hull and Commendone heard the chunk of the oars in the rowlocks. But they heard it at last. The tub-like galley shadowed them, there was a loud cry of welcome and relief, and then the two men, still grasping the inert figure of him who had fallen overboard, caught hold of the stern of the boat. Willing hands hauled the half-drowned man into the boat. Johnnie and Hull clambered over the broad stern, sat down amid-ships, and shook themselves.