CHAPTER X. RESCUED AND RESCUERS.
Despite their very natural excitement, caused by this peril and its foiling, Professor Featherwit retained nearly all his customary coolness and presence of mind.
Readily realising that after such a grim ordeal would almost certainly come a powerful revulsion, his first aim was to swing the stranger far enough away from the whirlpool to give him a fair chance for life, in case he should fall, through dizziness or physical collapse, from the end of the drag-rope.
This took but a few seconds, comparatively speaking, though, doubtless, each moment seemed an age to the rescued stranger. Then the professor slowed his ship, looking around in order to determine upon the wisest route to take.
For one thing, it would be severe work to draw the stranger bodily up and into the aerostat. For another, unless he should grow weak, or suffer from vertigo, both time and labour would be saved by taking him direct to the shore of this broad lake.
As soon as the rope was made fast, and the strain taken off their muscles as well as their minds, Bruno flashed a look around, naturally turning his eyes in the direction of the whirlpool.
Although less than a couple of minutes had elapsed since the man was lifted off the circling drift, even thus quickly had the end drawn nigh; for, even as he looked that way, Gillespie saw the great trunk sucked into the hidden sink, the top rising with a shiver clear out of the water as the butt lowered, a hollow, rumbling sound coming to all ears as—
“Gone!” cried Bruno, in awed tones, as the whole drift vanished from sight for ever.
“Sucked in by Jonah's whale, for ducats!” screamed Waldo, excitedly. “Fetch on your blessed 'sour-us' of both the male and female sect! Trot 'em to the fore, and if my little old suck don't take the starch out of their backbones,—they DID have backbones, didn't they, uncle Phaeton?”