“Now I’ll get hold, and you shall put your arms around my neck,” he cried as if asking some great favor.
“Don’t try it, lad, for I’ll surely drag you down. It may be that I can drop without much hurt, and even a broken bone to one, is better than for us to fall together.”
“Try it!” Benny screamed, seizing Sam by the neck. “Get hold of me!”
The surfman had no alternative, unless the boy should loosen his hold, and, letting go of the rope with one hand, he clasped the other around Benny’s arms.
“Now get hold with the other, and then shin up! I can hold on here quite a spell!”
Even now the heavy strain was beginning to tell upon the lad, and Sam understood that if anything was to be accomplished it must be done in the shortest possible space of time.
Wearied though he was by his previous vain exertions, he put forth all his strength for the last effort, and in so doing knew full well he inflicted grievous pain upon the little fellow who was ready to take any chances in order to aid him.
With a firm hold of Benny’s body the surfman was enabled to climb upward, and in a few seconds, which must have seemed to the boy like ten times that number of minutes, he succeeded in clutching the combing of the hatch.
Dragging himself over he seized No. 8’s legs, and none too soon, for the boy’s strength was exhausted, and at the very instant Sam grasped him he was forced to let go his hold.
A moment later the two were lying along the side of the hatch panting for breath, but in no further danger of a fall, and some time elapsed before the silence was broken.