By this time they were midway between waist and arm-pits and sinking as methodically as ever.
"Well, somebody's got to get out of the scrape alive," Henry remarked.
And, even without discussing the choice, both men began to hoist Leoncia up, although the effort and her weight thrust them more quickly down. When she stood, free and clear, a foot on the nearest shoulder of each of the two men she loved, Francis said, though the landscape mocked him:
"Now, Leoncia, we're going to toss you out^of this. At the word "Go! "let yourself go. And you must strike full length and softly on the crust. You'll slide a little. But don't let yourself stop. Keep on going. Crawl out to the solid land on your hands and knees. And, whatever you do, don't stand up until you reach the solid land. Beady, Henry?"
Between them, though it hastened their sinking, they swung her back and forth, free in the air, and, the third swing, at Francis' "Go!" heaved her shoreward.
Her obedience to their instructions was implicit, and, on hands and knees, she gained the solid rocks of the shore.
"Now for the rope!" she called to them.
But by this time Francis was too deep to be able to remove the coil from around his neck and under one arm. Henry did it for him, and, though the exertion sank him to an equal deepness, managed to fling one end of the rope to Leoncia.
At first she pulled on it. Next, she fastened a turn around a boulder the size of a motor car, and let Henry pull. But it was in vain. The strain or purchase was so lateral that it seemed only to pull him deeper. The quicksand was sucking and rising over his shoulders when Leoncia cried out, precipitating a very Bedlam of echoes:
"Wait! Stop pulling! I have an idea! Give me all the slack! Just save enough of the end to tie under your shoulders!"