"Ah!" he exclaimed, "I ken the voice--eet's you, Leigh, eesn't it?"

"Yes, Mr Macdougall, it's me," said I. "Do you feel better now?"

But he did not answer me for a moment, although I felt a tremble go
through his frame.

A moment afterwards, with what sounded like a sob, he cried out, "You
brave laddie! To theenk that you of all ithers should ha' coom to save
a reckless loon lik' me, the noo! It's a joogement on me for me cruel
leeing again' you, boy; you've heapit coals o' fire on me head!"

"Never mind that now, Mr Macdougall," I said. "We've got to see about
getting back to the ship, and then we can let bygones be bygones! Have
you got your breath back now?"

"Eh?"

"Do you think you can manage to put a hand on my shoulder, and rest
quiet in the water while I tow you along?"

"Aye, I'll try it, laddie."

"Mind, you mustn't clutch hold of me too hard," I cried; and, easying
him off from my chest, I turned round again in the water.

He sank about a foot at first from the change of position, but, keeping
strict heed to my injunctions, and gripping my shoulder with a grasp of
iron, he was presently floating half alongside and half behind, with his
head well out of the water, as I struck out to where I could still see
the ship as we rose every now and then at intervals on the crests of the
following waves; although, when we descended again between the
intervening hollows, we seemed shut in by a wall of sea.

The pampero having blown off from the pampas inland--whence the local
name for these tornadoes--had come from the westwards, and, of course,
the set of the waves, even after the wind had ceased to move them,
continued in a south-westerly direction, whither the _Esmeralda_ had
also been carried away from us, the exposed surface of her hull drifting
her more rapidly away than such tiny atoms as we presented to the
influence of the rollers. When, therefore, Mr Macdougall was so far
recovered as to permit of my attempting to regain the ship, she was
already quite a mile off, if not more!

As I looked at her distant sails, which came in sight when we got atop
of the billows, they seemed to be gliding further and further away each
fresh time that I saw them, showing that there was no wind; so, knowing
that a boat would have to pull all that distance against a heavy head
sea in order to fetch us, I almost despaired of our being picked up.

No one but those who have undergone a similar experience, can