eak or the hook drag out.

"This comes of having good new tackle," he said; and then, "Ah, I must
lose it if it pulls like this."

For the fish made so furious a strain upon the line that he felt that it
must break; no such line could bear it.

He felt in despair, for he was all eagerness now to see the monster he
had hooked, when a happy thought suggested itself, and in an instant he
had made three or four hitches round one of the oars with the end of the
line, and cast it overboard.

"There," he said, "you may tug at that, and I'll follow you."

Away went the light oar over the surface, bobbing down at one end, and
raising the blade in the air, while, putting the other over the stern,
Harry stood up, full of excitement, and began sculling after the novel
travelling float, when a wild cry for help, that seemed to send a
shudder through his frame, came from behind him over the surface of the
sea.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A FISH NOT FISHED FOR.

Hake, conger, shark, whatever it might be, forgotten as Harry Paul heard
that cry repeated. He had already begun turning his little boat, and
then, bending to his task, he forced it through the water as he stood up
in the stern, making the rippling waves rattle and splash against her
bows as a line of foam parted on either side.

He could see nothing for the moment, but he knew that some one must be
in deadly peril in the direction in which he had heard the cry, and,
exerting all his strength, he made for the place whence he thought it
must have come.

He was puzzled, for, save a few luggers swinging from the little buoys
that dotted the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of an accident
by the upsetting of a boat, or of any one struggling in the water.
Everything looked bright and cheerful in the morning sun, and after
sculling along for some time he was beginning to think that the cry must
have been uttered by some sea-bird, seeming weird and strange in the
early morning, when he suddenly recalled the fact that sound travels far
over a smooth, calm sea.

Had he felt any further doubt it was solved on the instant by a
repetition of the cry, this time clearer, and plainly to be interpreted
into that agonising appeal that thrills the hearts of weak and strong
alike--the one word "_Help_!"

And now, plainly enough, he could see the head of some one whose hands
appeared at intervals above the water, evidently in a fierce struggle
for life.

Whoever it was had lost