g akin to jealousy came over him, as he found the rope
drawn out vigorously, and it seemed to him that the midshipman was a far
better swimmer and diver than he.

"But he hasn't come to the difficult part yet," he thought, the next
moment. "He'll find that he can't keep down deep, and that while he is
trying to beat the tangling wrack to right and left something like a
current sucks him upward and forces him against the rocks that form the
arch."

Then, full of eagerness so as to be ready to help the diver when his
time of extremity came, Aleck held the rope attached to him with both
hands gingerly enough to let it pass easily through as wanted, but at
the same time, in the most guarded way, ready to let it fall against his
right shoulder when, as he intended, he turned sharply to walk swiftly
back into the interior of the cavern and draw his companion back to the
water's edge.

Then a curious thought struck him, consequent upon the rope beginning to
run out faster and faster.

"Why, he's getting through," he cried, mentally, with a suggestion of
disappointment in his brain at his comrade's better success. "He's
getting through, and he'll run out all the line quickly now and draw me
in.

"Well, so much the better," he thought. "If he can pass through I can,
and perhaps in a few moments we shall both have escaped.

"Wish I'd done something about our clothes," he muttered then. "We
shall want them, of course. But, I know; we can hide somewhere about
the mouth of the cave till it gets dark, and then I can take him up to
the Den, and--"

Aleck did not finish the plan he was thinking out, for the rope had
seemed to him to be running out to a far greater extent than he had
taken it himself; but in reality it had gone away at about the same
rate, so that something like the same quantity had been drawn through
his hands when it suddenly ceased to glide, and directly after a spasm
shot through the lad's brain, for it had stopped, and directly after the
signal was given sharply, sending a thrill through him.

He responded directly by clutching the rope tightly and beginning to
run.

It was only a beginning, for he was brought up short on the instant, and
so sharply that he was jerked backwards.

"Just the same as I must have been," he said to himself, excitedly,
after bearing hard against the rope and finding it quite fast. "It's
like conger fishing," he thought, "and I must give him line."

Slackening out at