at hole right through under the island?"

"No; it looks deep and still there at the other end of the rocks, and--
yes, you can see from here if you stand up. Why, Ladle, old chap, it is
running."

Vince had risen, taken hold of one of the jagged pieces of rock, stepped
on to a point, and was gazing down to his left at the pent-in sea, which
was rushing through a narrow opening between two towering rocks,
foaming, boiling, and with the waves leaping over each other, as if
forced out by some gigantic power, but evidently hidden from the side of
the sea by the great barrier stretched before them.

"I can't see anything," said Mike.

"Climb up a bit. Here--up above me."

Mike began to climb the rugged granite, and had just reached a position
from whence he could stretch over and see the exit of the pent-in
currents which glided round the little cove or bay, one strongly
resembling the water-filled crater of some extinct volcano, when his
left foot slipped from the little projection upon which he stood, and,
in spite of the frantic snatch he made to save himself, he fell heavily
upon Vince, driving him outward, while he himself dropped within the
ridge, and for the moment it seemed as if Vince was to be sent rolling
down the steep slope and over the edge of the precipice.

But the boy instinctively threw out his hands to clutch at anything to
stop his downward progress, and his right came in contact with Mike's
leg, gripping the trouser desperately, and the next moment he was
hanging at the full extent of his arm upon the slope, his back against
the rock, staring outward over the barrier at the sea, while Mike was
also on his back, but head downward, with his knees bent over the strait
ridge upon which they had so lately been standing.

For quite a minute they lay motionless, too much unnerved by the shock
to attempt to alter their positions; while Vince felt that if the cloth
by which he held so desperately gave way, nothing could save him, and he
must go down headlong to the unseen dangers below.

There was another danger, too, for which he waited with his heart
beating painfully. At any moment he felt that he might drag his
companion over to destruction, and the thought flashed through his
brain, ought he to leave go?

This idea stirred him to action, and he made a vain effort to find rest
for his heels; but they only glided over the rock, try how he would to
find one of the little shelf-like openings formed