"You bet!" he cried, as the water dashed over his face, "but how?"
I screamed into his ear again.
"Let go when I shout. Drop on your back. After that, don't move for your life. Leave the rest to me. Don't mind if you go under. It's our only chance."
He nodded his head.
I waited for an abatement of the surge.
"Now!" I yelled, as a great, unbroken swell came along.
Away we whirled on top of it; past the side of The Ghoul like bobbing corks,—into the rip and race of the tide,—sometimes above the water, most of the time under it,—gasping,—choking,—fighting,—then away,—in great heaving throws, from that churning death.
How brave Joe was! and how trusting! Not a struggle did he make in that awful ordeal. He lay pliable and lightly upon me, as I floated up the Bay,—or wherever the current might be taking us. But there was only one direction with that flowing tide, after we had passed The Ghoul, and I knew it was into the Bay. So quiet did Joe lie, that I began to think the life had gone out of him. But I could do nothing for him; nothing but try, whenever possible, to keep his head and my own out of the sea.
How long I struggled, I cannot tell. My arms and legs moved mechanically. I took the battering and the submerging as a matter of course. A pleasing lethargy settled over my brain and the terror of it all went from me.
When twenty minutes, or twenty years, might have flown, my head crashed against something hard. I turned quickly. I seized at the obstruction. It was a log from some broken boom. I threw my arm around it for support, then I caught Joe up and pulled his hand over it. In a second, he was all life. He clutched the log tightly, and hung on.