now cursing
horribly, cursing whenever a wave left choking them, and allowed them
to cough and sputter for breath. They fought as two men whose lives
had pent up an unmitigable hate for this moment. They fought,
neither losing his hold, as their strength ebbed, and the weight of
their clothes dragged them lower. Dick Rendal's hand still clutched
the cord of the life-belt, but both bodies were under water, fast
locked, when the liner's boat at length reached the spot. They were
hauled on board, as on a long line you haul a fish with a crab
fastened upon him; and were laid in the stern-sheets, where their
grip was with some difficulty loosened.

It may have happened in the struggle. Or again it may have happened
when they were hoisted aboard and lay, for a minute or so, side by
side on the deck. Both men were insensible; so far gone indeed that
the doctor looked serious as he and his helpers began to induce
artificial respiration.

The young third officer 'came round' after five minutes of this;
but, strangely enough, in the end he was found to be suffering from a
severer shock than Mr Markham, on whom the doctor operated for a full
twenty minutes before a flutter of the eyelids rewarded him.
They were carried away--the third officer, in a state of collapse, to
his modest berth; Mr Markham to his white-and-gold deck-cabin.
On his way thither Mr Markham protested cheerily that he saw no
reason for all this fuss; he was as right now, or nearly as right, as
the Bank.

CHAPTER III.

How's Rendal getting on?'

Captain Holditch, skipper of the _Carnatic_, put this question next
morning to the doctor, and was somewhat surprised by the answer.

'Oh, Rendal's all right. That is to say, he will be all right.
Just now he's suffering from shock. My advice--supposing, of course,
you can spare him--is to pack him straightaway off to his people on a
week's leave. In a week he'll be fit as a fiddle.' The doctor
paused and added, ''Wish I could feel as easy about the millionaire.'

'Why, what's the matter with him? 'Struck me he pulled round
wonderfully, once you'd brought him to. He talked as cheery as a
grig.

'H'm--yes,' said the doctor; 'he has been talking like that ever
since, only he hasn't been talking sense. Calls me names for keeping
him in bed, and wants to get out and repair that stanchion. I told
him it was mended. "Nothing on earth is the matter with me," he
insisted, till I had to quiet h