mother!"

"You shan't do it!" Fisher said, holding him fast. "It is certain
death!"

"All right," Charlie yelled back. "I choose death, then. I prefer it to
sitting still and seeing others die. My life is my own. I choose to risk
it."

He looked at Fisher closely for a moment, then, with one immense effort,
he wrenched himself away. He went leaping down the steps as a boy going
for a summer-morning dip.

Fisher turned round and met Bertie Richmond hurrying to help him.

"Let him go!" Fisher said briefly.

Thereafter came a terrible interval of waiting. The sky was clearing,
but the tempest did not abate. The rope ran out with jerks and pauses.
Fisher stood and counted at the head of the steps, his eyes on the
tumult that had swallowed up the slight active figure of the one man
among them all who had elected to risk his life against those
overwhelming odds.

"He must be dashed to pieces!" Bertie Richmond gasped to himself, with a
shudder.

The rope ceased to run. Fisher had counted four hundred and fifty. He
counted on resolutely to five hundred, then turned and raised his hand
to the men who held the coil. They hauled at the rope. It was limp. Hand
over hand they dragged it in through the foam. Fisher peered downwards.
It came so rapidly that he thought it must have parted among the rocks.
Then he saw a dark object bobbing strangely among the waves. He went
down the steps, that quivered and trembled like cardboard under his
feet.

Clinging to the iron rail, he reached out a hand and guided the rope to
him. A great sea broke over him and nearly swept him off. He saved
himself by hanging with both hands on to the rope. Thus he was dragged
up the steps to safety, and behind him, buffeted, bleeding, helpless,
came two limp bodies lashed fast together.

They cut the two asunder by the light of the lanterns, and one of them,
Charlie, staggered to his feet.

"I've got to go back!" he gasped. "You pulled too soon. There are two
others."

He dashed the blood from his face, seized a pocket flask someone held
out to him, and drained it at a long gulp.

"That's better!" he said. "That you, Fisher? Good-bye, old chap!"

The first pale light of a rising moon burst suddenly through the cloud
drift.

"I'll go myself," Fisher abruptly said.

Even in that roar of sound they heard the boyish laugh that rang out
upon the words.

"No, no, no!" shouted Charlie. "Bless you, dear fellow! But this is my
job--alone. You'