ere was a rugged continuation of the great
stone upon which the lads stood.

"There, isn't this something like a bath?" cried Kenneth. "It's
splendid, only you can't bathe when there's any sea."

"Why?" asked Max, so as to gain time.

"Why? Because every wave that comes in swells over where we're
standing, and rushes right into the cave. You wait and you'll hear it
boom like thunder."

_Plosh_!

"What's that?" cried Max, catching at his companion's arm.

"My seal! You watch and you'll see him come out."

"Yes, I can see him," cried Max, "swimming under water. A white one--
and--and--Why, it's that boy!"

"Ahoy!" cried a voice, as Scoodrach, who had undressed and dived in off
the shelf to swim out with a receding wave, rose to the surface and
shook the water from his curly red hair.

"Well, he can swim like a seal," cried Kenneth, running along the rough
shelf. "Come along."

Max followed him cautiously, and with an uneasy sense of insecurity,
while by the time he was at the end his guide was undressed, with his
clothes lying in a heap just beyond the wash of the falling tide.

"Look sharp! jump in!" cried Kenneth. "Keep inside here till you can
swim better."

As the words left his lips, he plunged into the crystal water, and Max
could follow his course as he swam beneath the surface, his white body
showing plainly against the dark rock, till he rose splashing and swam
out as if going right away.

But he altered his mind directly, and swam back toward the mouth of the
cave.

"Why, you haven't begun yet," he cried. "Aren't you coming in?"

"Ye-es, directly," replied Max, but without making an effort to remove a
garment, till he caught sight of a derisive look upon Kenneth's face--a
look which made the hot blood flush up to his cheeks, and acted as such
a spur to his lagging energies, that in a very few minutes he was ready,
and, after satisfying himself that the water was not too deep, he
lowered himself slowly down, gasping as the cold, bracing wave reached
his chest, and as it were electrified him.

"You shouldn't get in like that," cried Kenneth, roaring with laughter.
"Head first and--"

Max did not hear the rest. In his inexperience he did not realise the
facts that transparent water is often deeper than it looks, and that
seaweed under water is more slippery than ice.

One moment he was listening to Kenneth's mocking words; the next, his
feet, which were resting upon a piece of rock