“Bless my soul!” ejaculated the Captain, halting abruptly with the assistance of his sheet anchor, the malacca cane, as he half turned round. “The woman’s never such a fool!”
He thought it was Mrs Gilmour.
But, he was mistaken.
Dick had anticipated them both.
Bob’s unlucky slip and cry of alarm as he fell into the sea, his aunt’s exclamation of terror, the Captain’s movement to the rescue, and the grateful Dick’s perilous jump, for it was almost a leap from the top of the castle wall, were all, as has been already pointed out, the work of a moment; the chain of incidents taking much longer to describe than to happen.
So, there, before you could cry ‘Jack Robinson,’ as the Captain afterwards said, two boys, instead of one, were struggling with the dog in the water; and of all these three, to heighten the excitement of the scene, Rover alone was able to swim!
Bob, of course, had plunged in unwittingly, while Dick’s only thought was to help one from whom he had received such unexpected kindness; the lad not having reflected for an instant on the danger of the task he was undertaking.
Now, therefore, although on reaching the water the grateful boy succeeded in carrying out his object of catching hold of Bob, both immediately sank under the surface.
They came up the next moment locked together, spluttering and splattering for breath and holding up their hands for aid, an action which naturally sent them down again; the tide meanwhile sweeping them away from the shore.
Rover was master of the situation—that is, he and the Captain, who by this time had scrambled down to the last ledge of the rampart, and took in the position of affairs at a glance.