But the loud splash startled the three men. Not so did a cormorant or a white-winged solan plunge to secure an unwary haddock.
The net attendants straightened their backs; the oarsman stood up. The disturbance was so near, so unexpected, that it alarmed them. They looked aloft, thinking that a rock had fallen; they looked to the small eddy caused by Philip's disappearance to see if any sign would be given explanatory of an unusual occurrence.
Were Philip thrown from such a height when in full possession of his senses, in all likelihood such breath as was in his lungs at the moment of his fall would have been expelled by the time he reached the water.
He must have resisted the rush of air, uttered involuntary cries, struggled wildly with his limbs.
But, as it chanced, Mason's rough handling in carrying him to the balcony made active the vital forces that were restoring him to consciousness.
He was on the very threshold of renewed life when he fell, and the downward flight helped rather than retarded the process. Indeed, the rush of air was grateful. He drank in the vigorous draught, and inflated his lungs readily. His sensations were those of a man immersed in a warm bath, and the shock of his concussion with the surface of the sea in nowise retarded the recuperative effect of the dive.
Of course he was fortunate, after falling from such a height, in striking the water with his right shoulder. No portion of the human body is so fitted to bear a heavy blow as the shoulders and upper part of the back. Had he dropped vertically on his head or his feet he might have sustained serious injury. As it was, after a tremendous dive, and a curve of many yards beneath the sea, he bobbed up inside the salmon net within a few feet of the boat.
Instantly the fishermen saw that it was a man, an absolutely naked man, who had thus dropped from the sky.
They were amazed, very frightened indeed, but they readily hauled at the dragging net and brought Philip nearer the boat. Even at this final stage of his adventure he incurred a terrible risk.
Unable to help himself in the least degree, and swallowing salt water rapidly now, he rolled away inertly as the net rose under the energetic efforts of his rescuers. There was grave danger that he should drop back into the depths, and then he must sink like a stone.