The pressure of the canvas slung round the lad's chest gave him great pain, but setting his jaw tightly he allowed no sound to pass his lips. Dexterously the sub. "paid out" until the wounded youngster's feet touched the shrouds and his head and shoulders were below the opening on the floor. Fortunately the list of the ship had brought the shrouds on the starboard side very little short of a horizontal position, and thus Picklecombe was supported almost by his own weight against the wire stays. In a trice Tressidar nipped through and was by the midshipman's side.
"I'm feeling awfully dizzy," exclaimed Picklecombe. "Everything seems turning round."
The sub. gripped him as he spoke, for the lad was on the point of dropping to the deck, a distance of between sixty and seventy feet beneath his precarious perch. To make matters worse, clouds of smoke and steam issuing through the funnels and steam-pipes drifted past and hid the two young officers from the sight of those on deck. Shouting for help was futile, since the hiss of steam deadened all other sounds.
Hanging on tenaciously, Tressidar forced himself between the shrouds and the now almost unconscious midshipman. With his disengaged hand he held the lad tightly to his back.
"Let go!" ordered the sub. peremptorily.
The sense of discipline overcame the midshipman's almost automatic inclination to grip whatever came nearest to hand. He relinquished his hold and his arm fell listlessly over his rescuer's shoulder.
Step by step the sub. descended. The shrouds, stretched almost to breaking-point by the strain of the heavy mast, were so springy under the combined weight that at every moment Tressidar was nearly capsized. The hot steam almost choked him. It also prevented him seeing where he was or whether the ship was actually on the point of foundering.
At length he gained a portion of the shrouds beneath the cloud of vapour. The "Heracles'" fo'c'sle was now awash. Her poop on the portside was dipping. The remaining serviceable boats, which had been lowered and filled with wounded men, were lying-to at a safe distance from the foundering vessel. Officers and men, for the most part stripped, were leaping over the side in knots of half a dozen or so at the time, as if reluctant to leave the good old ship.
The next instant the agitated water seemed to rise up to meet the sub. and his companion. The "Heracles" was capsizing rapidly.
Relaxing his grip upon the shrouds, Tressidar allowed himself and his burden to be floated away by the eddying sea, using his disengaged arm to strike out and avoid as far as possible being entangled in the raffle of gear.