"Oh, lor! oh, lor! I'm afraid easy won't do it then, and that my little girl will be a widow. Give me hold of the rope. If pulling will do it, I'll soon have him on shore again all right. The idea, now, of a man, with the nicest young creature of a wife in the world, going into the sea at the end of a rope, and covering himself all over with froth and sea-weed! Oh, dear! oh, dear! It's truly dreadful, it is; and easy certainly don't do it."
Ben would have lent his aid to pull the rope, but the colonel kept him back, as it was not strength but skill and tact that in the process was required, and the rope was in the hands of men who had both.
It was clear that Ingestrie had got hold of the floating object, whatever it was, and that, as he was pulled into shore, he brought it with him. When he reached the edge of the surf again, a quick pull brought him at once through it, and a couple of the sailors, dashing into the waters, got a hold of him, and drew him right up on to the beach between them.
Half a dozen more brought to the shore the body of a man, tied to a plank of wood.
Poor Mark was nearly exhausted. He was just able only to smile faintly in answer to the colonel's anxious inquiries.
"He must be carried home," said the colonel. "Lend me some assistance, my brave fellows, to do so."
"No—no!" Ingestrie managed just to say faintly. "Take him—take him!"
He pointed to the man whom he had rescued, and the colonel immediately said,
"Make yourself easy about him, my dear friend. The sailors will carry him to the house, and if the vital spark has not quite fled, you shall have the pleasure of knowing that you have saved him. But it is yourself that I wish to have got home."
"Can you walk?" said Ben.