"Let the men take that anchor there up to the knoll, dig a hole for the fluke, and back it up with a grapnel--two claws buried."
"Why, sir," said one of the men doubtingly, "what are you going to do?"
"When the whip comes ashore, make it fast to the ring of that anchor, and make the hawser, when it comes ashore, fast to the same ring. I can see nothing else that will do. We'll manage the rest aboard. When all is fast, you will haul the men ashore one by one in a basket. Now there, look alive! Make that line fast round my waist."
"But it would be murder to let you go when Bence has failed."
"By ----, if any man tries to let me in this, there will be murder! Do you hear?" he roared at the top of his voice, as he drew himself up like a lion at bay, and shook himself ominously. It was a startling oath, a startling transition of tone and manner from the tone and manner of a moment before.
"Give me the line," he cried, "you palsied idiots! Give me the line and half a pound of sheet-lead!"
The man who held the line handed it to him mechanically.
One of the women whose husband was in the yacht ran to her cottage and returned, in a few seconds, with a long narrow strip of sheet-lead, such as fishermen use for making net-sinkers.
"How far below the present level of the water is there rock in those open places?" Cheyne asked, as he made the line fast round his waist.
"Two fathom," answered one of the men.