With a last effort I twisted myself round and faced out into the grey void of the dock.
"Help!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Help!"
With a staggering unexpectedness that nearly made me let go my grip, an answering hail came back through the mist.
"Wot's the matter? Were are you?'
"Here!" I sung out frantically. "In the water. Up against the wall."
"'Ang on, then," holloaed a gruff, encouraging voice. "'Ang on! mate! I'm a-comin'."
From a little way off I heard the sudden splash and creak of oars, and no music could have rivalled the beauty of that familiar sound. Nearer and nearer it came, while with deadened fingers I clasped the ring and battled fiercely against a growing feeling of faintness. At last, just when I felt that I could not hold on for another second, a vague blur of light broke out before me in the darkness. The ghostly outline of a boat's stern loomed up suddenly into view, and then, almost before I knew what was happening, a strong hand had gripped me by the elbow, and I was being dragged in over the gunwale. Grateful but helpless, I flopped down on to the wet floorboards, where I lay dripping and panting like a newly landed fish.
"Seems to me I come along about the right time, eh, mate?"
The gleam of a lantern flickered close above my head, and a bearded, friendly face, half hidden by a sou'-wester, peered down into mine.
"A drop o' rum's wot you want," continued my rescuer. "'Ere, 'ave a go at this; that'll put some guts into yer."