king party
had time to raise the cry of 'Man overboard!' Before the alarm
reached the bridge, he had kicked off his shoes; and the last sound
in his ears as he dived was the ping of the bell ringing down to the
engine-room--a thin note, infinitely distant, speaking out of an
immense silence.

CHAPTER II.

It was a beautifully clean dive; but in the flurry of the plunge the
third officer forgot for an instant the right upward slant of the
palms, and went a great way deeper than he had intended. By the time
he rose to the surface the liner had slid by, and for a moment or two
he saw nothing; for instinctively he came up facing aft, towards the
spot where Mr Markham had fallen, and the long sea running after
yesterday's gale threw up a ridge that seemed to take minutes--though
in fact it took but a few seconds--to sink and heave up the trough
beyond. By-and-by a life-belt swam up into sight; then another--at
least a dozen had been flung; and beyond these at length, on the
climbing crest of the swell two hundred yards away, the head and
shoulders of Mr Markham. By great good luck the first life-belt had
fallen within a few feet of him, and Mr Markham had somehow managed
to get within reach and clutch it--a highly creditable feat when it
is considered that he was at best a poor swimmer, that the fall had
knocked more than half the breath out of his body, that he had
swallowed close on a pint of salt water, and that a heavy overcoat
impeded his movements. But after this fair first effort Mr Markham,
as his clothes weighed him down, began--as the phrase is--to make
very bad weather of it. He made worse and worse weather of it as
Dick Rendal covered the distance between them with a superlatively
fine side-stroke, once or twice singing out to him to hold on, and
keep a good heart. Mr Markham, whether he heard or no, held on with
great courage, and even coolness--up to a point. Then of a sudden
his nerve deserted him. He loosed his hold of the life-belt, and
struck out for his Rescuer. Worse, as he sank in the effort and Dick
gripped him, he closed and struggled. For half a minute Dick,
shaking free of the embrace--and this only by striking him on the jaw
and half stunning him as they rose on the crest of a swell--was able
to grip him by the collar and drag him within reach of the life-belt.
But here the demented man managed to wreathe his legs and arms in
another and more terrible hold. The pair of them were