In a minute all hands were upon the raft, and Brand was about severing the rope with his knife, when, with a sudden lurch, down went the ship dragging the floating platform with it.
The men drifted off into sea! but Mary being lashed to the raft went down with it!
[CHAPTER V.]
THE ISLAND.
As the young girl disappeared beneath the dark waters, two persons dove after her, determined to accomplish her rescue or perish in the attempt.
Those two were Harry Glenville and old Tom Turk.
Could they reach the girl and bring her to the surface, they might easily manage to lash her to some one of the many planks and spars floating around them, and faintly revealed in the lurid gleam streaming along the waters from the volcano, now less than two miles distant.
Down under the sea, Turk and his friend finally came upon the girl, when, with one blow of his knife, hold ready in his right hand, Harry severed the rope holding Mary to the raft.
Now, however, he felt the force of the downward suction of the doomed ship, and was unable to ascend with his burden to the surface of the sea.