Katherine tried to run too, but the track was uphill now, and the
force of the wind caught her the higher she got. Panting,
breathless, her heart beating with fierce, irregular thumps, she
toiled up the rocky track, and, crossing the summit, began to
descend on the other side.

The gulch was before her now. When she had seen it last it was a
rocky valley, deep in the cliffs, and floored with boulders. Now
it was a long pool, for the tide was in, and the sea, working
through the porous, frost-riven rocks, had half-filled it with
water. Katherine, approaching the gulch from the landward side,
was coming to the place from an opposite direction to that by which
Jervis Ferrars had reached it, and her path downwards was much
easier than his had been.

She was hesitating whether it was of any use to go in, thinking the
dog must have led her wrong after all, when she caught sight of
something bobbing up and down in the water--something that looked
like a man's head, and at which Hero was barking furiously.

She ran then with flying, reckless feet, jumping from boulder to
boulder, slipping and sliding, but, as she said afterwards, going
too fast to fall. The person in the water had put up a wet hand,
crying hoarsely for help, and the leaping, suffocating bound which
her heart gave told her that it was Jervis Ferrars who needed her.

"Can you catch the rope if I throw it?" she cried, flinging the
coil on the ground so that it might unwind easily.

"Yes," he said in an exhausted tone, which showed her that she had
come only just in time.

As she threw the line she wondered with sick fear in her heart
where Mary could be, then saw, to her surprise, that Jervis was
holding something up in the water, and understood why he had been
unable to land his burden on the steep, shelving bank.

Directly he had caught the rope with his one free hand, she rushed
a few steps back up the hill to wind the other end round a tall,
upstanding boulder; then hurrying back she began to pull gently on
the rope, which Jervis had managed to twist round his arm.

She had forgotten all about Oily Dave, and was fairly startled when
his voice sounded close to her, saying: "I've got the rope; see if
you can ketch 'old of the gal quick, for he's got cramp, sure as
blazes!"

Katherine made a dash forward, entered the water nearly to her
waist, and, seizing Mary with one hand, clutched at Jervis with the
other, holding both until Oily Dave came