A quick look round, then Dick dropped to the ground, unlaced his boots, drew them off, and flung off his coat.
"Go to our den, Sam," he cried, "and fling over the two barrels we use for chairs."
"You be never going to——"
But Sam's protest was unheeded and almost unheard. Dick was clambering down the steep face of the cliff. The fisher-lads could not swim; scarcely a man in Polkerran was more skilled than they; and it was plain that unless assistance came to them at once they must be drowned, for the boat, pulling out against wind and wave, could not reach them in time.
Thirty feet above the sea, and almost exactly over the spot where the boat had capsized, there was a narrow ledge. As a swimmer Dick was self-taught. He usually plunged into the sea from a rock a few feet above the surface; the dive he now prepared to take was at least five times as great as he had ever attempted before. Fortunately the fairway was clear of rocks, although the waves beat roughly against the almost perpendicular cliff. A momentary hesitation, then Dick dived off. He took the water cleanly, but, somewhat dazed by the violence of the shock, he went far deeper than a practised diver would have done. To himself, as to Sam, gazing at him horror-stricken from above, it seemed a terribly long time before he shot up to the surface.
But he emerged at last. Shaking the water from his eyes, he looked round for signs of the fisher-lads. Within twelve yards of him he saw the boat, bottom upwards, and a boy clinging to the rudder. A gust of wind whipped the spindrift into Dick's eyes; for some moments he could see nothing more. But then, five or six yards away, between the boat and the cliff, he caught sight of an arm rising from the sea, only to disappear instantly. He struck out for the spot. In a few seconds a dark mass surged up almost beside him. Another stroke or two enabled him to get a grip upon it before it could sink again. Fortunately both for the drowning lad and his rescuer, the former was by this time unconscious. In the rough sea that tumbled about him Dick could scarcely have fought against the struggles of a frantic man. In a trice he turned the lad face upward, and, firmly grasping his collar with one hand, swam on his back with his legs and one free arm. Surely he could hold out until the boat came up! He heard the shouts of the men and the splash of the oars; it could not be far away.
There was a danger that he might be swept by the waves against the frowning cliff, and knocked senseless. To avoid this, he struck out furiously towards the middle of the fairway, where the empty barrels thrown down by Sam were floating. In a calm sea his strength might easily have endured the fatigue of supporting a dead weight, but he knew that he was being conquered by the tumbling waves, and the blinding, choking spray that swept over him, it seemed without intermission. Again and again he felt that he could never regain his breath. The struggle to do so weakened him far more than the muscular exertion. The dreadful conviction seized him that he, too, was drowning. But his grip never relaxed; even when a dazed and helpless feeling came over him, he kept the lad's collar firmly in his clutch. Then he was dimly conscious of a quiet restfulness and content; and Sam, in frantic terror above, saw his movements cease, and felt an agonising certainty that his young master was lost.
When Dick came to himself, he found himself lying in the bottom of Nathan Pendry's boat, within a few yards of the jetty. The rescuers had come up in the nick of time. Dick and the lad he had saved were hauled into the boat together, and the fingers of the former were so tightly clenched that for some time it was impossible to separate the two. The overturned craft had drifted within a few yards of the cliff, and the other boy still clung to it. He was taken aboard, and meanwhile two of the men used all the means they knew to restore the others to consciousness. Without waiting to secure the capsized boat, they pulled with all speed for the jetty, which was thronged with village folk, whom the news of the accident had brought in hot haste from their houses.
The dripping lads were taken out and carried to the inn, where Mrs. Doubledick had made up a roaring fire, and had blankets and hot brandy awaiting them. Sam, pale as a sheet, forced his way through the crowd at the door towards his master.
"Oh, 'tis good to see 'ee safe!" he cried, almost hugging Dick. "Hev 'ee swallered much?" he asked anxiously.