t! I tell you what, it's like one of those great pot-holes in
the big passage, only a hundred times as big; and the water's sweeping
the boulders round, and grinding it out and carrying us along with it.
Look here, we shall be kept on going round and round here, if we don't
get smashed, till daylight; and then old Jarks'll come and find us, and
we shall be worse off than ever. I say, though, don't you think we
could do something with the boat-hook?"

"What?"

"Wait till we bump against the rocks again, and then try and hold on."

"If you did the water would come over the stern."

"I don't know. Well, look here: I'll try. If it does I'll let go
directly."

Taking hold of the boat-hook Vince knelt down right forward, thrust the
iron-armed pole over the bows, and holding it like a lance in rest he
waited, but not for long. Very soon after the iron point touched
against stone, and he was thrown backward, nearly losing the pole, while
the boat was sent surging along on one side for a few moments, bumped on
the other side, then back again as if she were being sent from side to
side, and directly after the keel came upon a rock which seemed to slope
up like a great boulder standing in their way. There for a brief moment
or two it was balanced, and made a plunge forward like a dive, the water
came with a rush over the bows, and surged back to where Mike was
kneeling, and then they were rushing onward again more swiftly than
ever.

For a few moments the pair were too breathless to speak, but Vince
recovered from the confusion caused by the shock and the rapidly
following exciting incidents, and he shouted aloud,--

"Bale, Mike, bale! It's all right: we're out of that whirlpool, and
we're going along again."

"You've got the baler forward," said Mike huskily.

"Eh? So I have in the locker here. I say, how deep do you make the
water? There's hardly any here."

"Only a few inches."

"Then we're all right yet; but we may as well have that out."

He felt for the locker, and drew out the old tin pot, crept aft to where
his companion knelt, and, after lifting the board which covered in the
keel depression, he began to toss out the water rapidly, and soon
lowered it so that the pot began to scrape on the bottom, while Mike
listened with a feeling of envy attacking him, for he felt that it must
be a relief to be doing something instead of kneeling there listening
and wondering whether the pursuing boat was anywhe