Short time as their pursuers had stayed upon the strand, it seemed an
age to the submerged midshipmen.
On first placing themselves in position, they had chosen a spot where,
with their knees resting upon the bottom, they could just hold their
chins above water. This would enable them to hold their ground without
any great difficulty, and for some time they so maintained it.
Soon, however, they began to perceive that the water was rising around
them--a circumstance easily explained by the influx of the tide. The
rise was slow and gradual, but for all that they saw that should they
require to remain in their place of concealment for any length of time,
drowning must be their inevitable destiny.
A means of avoiding this soon presented itself. Inside the line of
breakers, the water shoaled gradually towards the shore. By advancing
in this direction they could still keep to the same depth. This course
they adopted, gliding cautiously forward upon their knees whenever the
tide admonished them to repeat the manoeuvre.
This state of affairs would have been satisfactory enough, but for a
circumstance that, every moment, was making itself more apparent. At
each move they were not only approaching nearer to their enemies,
scattered along the strand, but as they receded from the line of the
breakers, the water became comparatively tranquil, and its smooth
surface, less confused by the masses of floating foam, was more likely
to betray them to the spectators on the shore.
To avoid this catastrophe, which would have been fatal, they moved
shoreward only when it became absolutely necessary to do so, often
permitting the tidal waves to sweep completely over the crown of their
heads, and several time threaten suffocation.
Under circumstances so trying, so apparently hopeless, most lads--ay,
most men--would have submitted to despair, and surrendered themselves to
a fate apparently unavoidable. But with that true British pluck,
combining the tenacity of the Scotch terrier, the English bulldog, and
the Irish stag-hound, the three youthful representatives of the triple
kingdom determined to hold on.
And they held on, with the waves washing against their cheeks, and at
intervals quite over their heads, with the briny fluid rushing into
their ears and up their nostrils, until one after another began to
believe that there would be no alternative between surrendering to the
cruel sea, or to the not less cruel sons of the Saara.
As they were close together, they could hold council, conversing all the
time in something louder than a whisper. There was no risk of their
being overheard. Though scarce a cable's length from the shore, the
hoarse soughing of the surf would have drowned the sound of their
voices, even if uttered in a much louder tone; but being skilled in the
acoustics of the ocean, they exchanged their thoughts with due caution:
and while encouraging one another to remain firm, they speculated freely
upon the chances of escaping from their perilous predicament.
While thus occupied, a predicament of an equally perilous and still more
singular kind, was in store for them. They had been hitherto advancing
towards the water's edge, in regular progression with the influx of the
tide, all the while upon their knees. This, as already stated, had
enabled them to sustain themselves steadily, without showing anything
more than three-quarters of the head above the surface.
All at once, however, the water appeared to deepen; and by going upon
their knees they could no longer surmount the waves, even with their
eyes. By moving on towards the beach, they might again get into
shallower water; but just at this point the commotion caused by the
breakers came to a termination, and the flakes of froth, with the
surrounding spray of bubbles here bursting, one after another, left the
surface of the sea to its restored tranquillity. Anything beyond a
cork, or the tiniest waif of seaweed, could scarce fail to be seen from
the strand, though the latter was itself, constantly receding as the
tide flowed inward.
The submerged middies were now in a dilemma they had not dreamed of. By
holding their ground, they could not fail to "go under". By advancing
farther, they would run the risk of being discovered to the enemy.
Their first movement was to get up from their knees, and raise their
heads above water by standing in a crouched attitude on their feet.
This they had done before, more than once, returning to the posture of
supplication only when too tired to sustain themselves.
This they attempted again, and determined to continue it to the last
moment, in view of the danger of approaching nearer to the enemy.
To their consternation they now found that it would no longer avail
them. Scarce they had risen erect before discovering that, even in his
position, they were immersed to the chin, and after plunging a pace or
two forward, they were still sinking deeper. They could feel that their
feet were not resting on firm bottom; but constantly going down.
"A quicksand!" was the apprehension that rushed simultaneously into the
minds of all three.
Fortunately for them, the Arabs, at that moment, yielding to their
fatalist fears, had faced away from the shore; else the plunging and
splashing made by them in their violent endeavours to escape from the
quicksand could not have failed to dissipate these superstitions, and
cause their pursuers to complete the capture they had so childishly
relinquished.
As it chanced, the Saaran wreckers saw nothing of all this; and as the
splashing sounds, which otherwise might have reached them, were drowned
by the louder sough of the sea, they returned toward their encampment in
a state of perplexity bordering upon bewilderment.