Joe Jollivet must have gone over the cliff in another instant headlong
down to destruction, for only one thing could have saved him, and in all
probability the sudden jerk of his snatching at his comrade would have
taken him, too.
But as it happened Samuel Hardock--"the Captain," as he was generally
called in Ydoll Cove--saw the mistake he had made, and did that one
special thing.
Turning suddenly, he stepped quickly back, tightening the line again,
drawing Gwyn close up to the sharp edge of the cliff once more; and as
in his agony Joe clutched at the moving cord, and clung to it with all
his might, he too was drawn back from the edge.
"That was near," muttered Hardock. "What's best to be done?"
Fortunately the man could be cool and matter-of-fact in the face of real
danger, though, as he had shown, he was a superstitious coward when it
was something purely imaginary; and he did at once the very best thing
under the circumstances.
"Put heart into 'em by making 'em wild," he muttered, and he burst into
a hearty fit of laughter.
"Yah!" he cried. "Nice pair o' soft-roed 'uns you two are! Why, you
aren't got no more muscle than a pair o' jelly-fishes. There, get, your
breath, Master Joe, and have another try; and you see if you can't make
another out of it, Colonel. You're all right if you've made that knot
good. I could hold you for a week standing up, and when I get tired I
can lie down. Now--hard, hard! I thought you meant to dive off the
cliff, you, Master Joe."
The latter had risen to his knees with his wet hair clinging to his
brow; and for a moment he felt disposed to rage out something furiously
at the grinning speaker.
But he refrained, and turned to get a fresh grip of Gwyn, who seemed to
have recovered somewhat, too.
"He's a beast!" cried Joe, angrily, for the anger was working in the
right direction.