“Have courage, sir, and stand ready to help yourself! We will rescue you if it lies within the possibilities of—we WILL save you!”
“You bet we just will, and right—like this,” spluttered Waldo, as he cast the grapnel over the rail and swiftly lowered it by the rope. “Play you're a fish, stranger, and when you bite, hang on like grim death to a—steady, now!”
Fortunately nothing occurred to mar the programme so hastily arranged, for the drift was drawing nearer the centre of the whirl, and if once fairly caught by that, nothing human could preserve the stranger from death.
“Make a jump and grab it, if you can't do better!” cried Waldo, intensely excited now that the crisis was at hand.
The long rope with its iron weight swayed awkwardly in spite of all he could do to steady it, and as each one of the three prongs was meant for catching and holding fast to whatever they touched, there was no slight risk of impaling the man, thus giving him the choice of another and still more painful death.
Then, with a desperate grasp, a death-clutch, he caught one arm of the grapnel, holding fast as the shock came. He was carried clear of the tree, and partly submerged in the water as his added weight brought the flying-machine so much lower.
“Up, up, uncle Phaeton!” fairly howled Waldo, at the same time tugging at the now taut rope, in which he was ably seconded by his brother. “For love of—higher, uncle!”
Then the noble machine responded to the touch of its builder, lifting the dripping stranger clear of the whirling currents, swinging him away towards yonder higher level, where a fall would not prove so quickly fatal. And then the eager professor gave a shrill cheer as he saw the man, by a vigorous effort, draw his body upward sufficiently far to throw one leg over an arm of the grapnel itself.
Knowing now that the rescued was in no especial peril, uncle Phaeton left the air-ship to steer itself long enough for his nimble hands to take several turns of the drag-rope around the cleat provided for that express purpose, thus relieving both Bruno and Waldo of the heavy strain, which might soon begin to tell upon them.
“Hurrah for we, us, and company!” cried Waldo, relieving his lungs of a portion of their pent-up energy, then leaning perilously far over the edge of the machine to encourage the queer fish he had hooked.