VOLUNTEER II.
Cheyne had been a careful and intelligent spectator of Bence's
failure, and he had learnt two of the great causes of it.
In the first place he had seen that Bence swam at such a distance from
the openings as not to receive the full force of the bore, but at the
same time to be very much thrown out of his course by the spent water.
In the second place he had noticed that at least half Bence's
difficulty arose from the rope he towed getting into these currents,
and dragging him still more out of his course.
In both these cases were precious time and enormous labour thrown
away. It occurred to Cheyne that both sources of loss could be easily
avoided. If the swimmer kept under the absolute shelter of the rocks,
close to them as possible where there was a slight backwater, and
waited to swim across the open spaces until all the force of the wave
had been spent, and the water in front of the opening was still, he
would avoid any loss of way owing to the former cause in Bence's case.
If, instead of towing a long slack line after him, he could manage so
as to cause the line to sink almost perpendicularly from his waist to
a depth below the influence of the water rushing through these
openings, then the line, if allowed to run freely out at the shore
end, would lie straight behind the swimmer.
Now that he was in the water he struck out for the reef, keeping as
close to the northern shore as possible, in order to avoid any direct
influence of the currents from the reef, and in order to get the
advantage of the backwater, if there should happen to be any.
When he reached the reef he swam in under the rock, and there awaited
the bore. As soon as the water had subsided he made a few vigorous
strokes, and crossed the opening without losing a foot of ground.
Adopting the same plan at the next opening, he passed it with equal
success.
"He knows how to go about it," said one of the men on the shore.
"And he's a powerful swimmer."
"He'll be as fresh as a daisy when he gets to number seven."
"Ay, but how is he to get through number seven?" asked Bence, who had
by this time been restored to consciousness, and comforted with warm
dry clothes and brandy.
"Leave it to him. When a man makes a good beginning like that, it
isn't for any one to doubt him until he shows that he's beat. That's
what I say."
"And what I say," retorted Bence, "is, that no one who has not been in
one of the guts does not know what they are."
"Well, we sha'n't be much longer in doubt; he's at number seven now."
From the time Cheyne left the shore, he had not, owing to his keeping
so close to the rocks, been able to see even the topmast of the
_Seabird_.
He paused under the last rock for awhile--not to rest himself, for he
felt no fatigue, but to consider what he should do.
He first of all resolved to look into the opening. He waited until the
water had rushed through, then swam in front of it, and looked in. He
was a much bigger man than Bence, and the first thought which occurred
to him was, could he squeeze himself through? At a mere glance it
appeared as if he could not; but upon a closer examination and
reflection, he came to the conclusion that the passage was at least
four feet wide, and almost of a uniform width. He waited to see the
bore coming, and then, with a few vigorous strokes, put himself once
more under the shelter of the rock.
Owing to his enormous chest capacity, Cheyne swam very high, and in
sea-water he could move about with almost as much ease as on land. In
the deep water under the rocks the sinker on the line, even if it hung
perpendicular under him, would not touch the bottom, and consequently
impeded his swimming only by its weight in water, which was, of
course, much less than its weight in air. But there were only two
fathoms of water in the cleft; and if he entered the channel towing
that leaded line after him, the chance was it would get jambed
somewhere, and he should be obliged to turn back, or come back
somehow, turning being out of the question on account of the
narrowness of the place, in order to free the sinker.
Remembering the free way in which the line had been paid out, and the
fact that the sinker was now almost perpendicular under him, he
concluded that the whole of the line now run out was far below the
influence of the bores. These were not, by-the-way, real bores, but
the term fitted them better than any other in the language.
When the next wave had gone by, Cheyne seized the edge of the passage,
and catching the line in his feet and left hand, began drawing it up.
At the approach of a second wave he was obliged to desist, but before
a third was upon him he had the lead in his left hand, and was tearing
it off with his teeth.
He had also another object in drawing the slack of that line. It was
more than advisable that he should take with him into that cleft as
much of the rope as would reach through; for if he had to overcome the
friction between the line and the corner of the passage, his progress
would be very much slower than if he could pay out as he went.
Therefore, while treading the water in the slack, he made a small coil
of about fifty feet of rope. He could swim with his right hand and
legs.
Everything was now ready; and having waited his time, he filled his
chest, threw back his head, and struck out for the opening.
The place looked forbidding. But its narrowness was greatly in the
swimmer's favour. If it had been five feet wider, no man in his senses
would have dared to enter it at such a time; but because of its
narrowness there was only one point to expect motion from, namely,
ahead. When the bore had swept through, the water was calm; there was
no room for perturbation; and in so narrow a place, where one could
touch both sides with hands and feet, there was not much chance of
being dashed against the side.
Cheyne had, like Bence, resolved to dive under the bore. But he did
not forget, what Bence had forgotten, that beneath the surface of the
present smooth water the bore would rush with as much fury as in the
body of the bore itself. This was not like a wave which moves with
only the force of its undulation, and which has no more lateral power
than its onward tidal force.
It is not the lateral force of the sea that beats the beams out of
ships, and tears away the most enduring walls of man and the
adamantine barriers of nature. It is the shoulder of the wave that
gets under the ships and the walls and the cliffs, and pushes them to
destruction. At sea we never find the water flying up into the air; of
its own accord the water would not leave the cradle in lies in. It is
only when it meets with an obstacle and is broken that it deserts its
own bed. Then, being broken and weak, it is caught by the wind, and
flung over the rocks and cliffs in spray.
But in the case of the passage in which Cheyne now found himself, it
was quite different. Into this entered a new body of water, a
perpendicular section of a wave which had been torn from the general
body of water, and as a projectile blown through this opening by the
wind.
Now Bence had not calculated on this; he thought that if he got under
the body or lowest level of the bore visible, he would find himself in
still water.
Cheyne had also resolved on diving, but for a very different object.
Suppose he remained on the surface, the force of no mortal man could
resist that wild rush of water, and the upward thrust which would
strike him in the place where such a blow would be most effective--the
chest. It would turn him over as a wind would a leaf. It would in all
likelihood lift part of his body out of the water, and hurl him
backward into the open beyond. The rush of the water must be borne,
there was no way of avoiding that; but the uplifting might be avoided.
It was plain that when a torrent, or when in repose, the cleft held
just the same quantity of water, from the dead-level line down. Not a
gallon more water was below the low-level water-line when the bore
dashed through the cleft than a second before the incoming of the
wave.
Therefore the bore, as it were, ran along the low-level water; and
although the water beneath would be pushed violently forward, the
horizontal motion would not be quite as much as above, and there would
be little upheaval.
But Cheyne knew what Bence did not know--that no man could, by
swimming alone, stem the force of even that under-current.
"When I dive," he said to himself, "and get down there, I shall let go
a pretty powerful grapnel. I shall moor myself on all-fours with my
hands and feet."
He swam up the cleft, paying out his little coil of rope as he went,
until he heard the roller break upon the outer rocks. Then, without
waiting another moment, he dived.
When he found the descending force of the dive spent, he thrust out
both arms and legs until they reached the sides, then working his legs
up and his hands down, until he could get the full measure of his
enormous strength to bear laterally upon the rocks, he thrust forward
his head and awaited the onset.
When it came it was not quite as bad as he had anticipated; but the
strain was tremendous. He had no difficulty in resisting it; but
another man, a man of ordinary strength, would have been taxed to the
utmost, and in all likelihood driven from his hold.
Cheyne waited until the rush had past, and then rose to the surface.
He found himself a few feet in advance of where he had dived.
He had not got many more feet when he heard the thunder of the roller
on the rocks once more. Again he was under water before the bore
entered the cleft. He had resolved to risk nothing, and his curiosity
to know what his foe was like could not induce him to wait and see it.
This time the conditions below water were slightly altered. The
passage was wider, and the hold, consequently, less secure; but, to
compensate for this, the rush of water was less swift.
The fact that the passage widened thus gradually was a matter of
surprise and much anxiety to Cheyne. He had a considerable distance to
go before he got out of the cleft and within sight of the yacht, which
lay to the southward a little off where he was.
If the passage went on widening as it approached the mouth, then there
must be a point, and that too not far off, at which it would be
impossible for him to reach from side to side, when, in fact, he would
have nothing to rely upon but his powers as a swimmer. A baby would be
as potent against that bore as he, if he depended on his powers as a
swimmer merely.
It was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution. Should one wave
overtake him, unprovided with secure holding-ground under water, all
that he had hitherto achieved would be undone, and his own life most
likely endangered. He must, so to speak, pick his steps. That is,
thenceforth all his progress must be under water.
When the present bore had run its course he rose for breath. The
period of his submersion was never more than ten to fifteen seconds.
After a few hasty inspirations he dived again, and, feeling carefully
along, crawled forward hand over hand, and foot over foot, for a few
seconds, until it was time to expect the next wave. Then he set
himself to resist it as before.
The moment the current slackened, he rose once more, took breath, and
dived again.
At last he came to the place beyond which it would have been obviously
unwise to advance, if he were to depend on the means hitherto adopted
of stemming the torrent.
What was to be done now?
He was still a good distance from the mouth of the cleft. He had heard
the men on shore say that if once he were at the mouth of the cleft he
should be past the worst, as he should then be in sight of the yacht,
from which a rope could be thrown to him.
He now was cut and bleeding in a dozen different places.
Another thing, too, troubled him greatly. He had during the few last
dives, tried to pull up some of the rope he towed after him, and he
began to feel that the few small coils he had left would not be
sufficient to reach the end of the passage.
What could one do in such a strait?
Desperate cases require desperate remedies. There were two coils of
that rope round his body. If he unwound these he would be able to add
considerably to his few remaining coils. He could tie the end of the
line to his left wrist, and then he should be no more incapacitated
than he had been with the coils.
To effect this, under existing circumstances, was an enormous labour.
Wave after wave he dived under; time after time he rose again to his
work.
At length the line was ready, and he had only now to face his
desperate swim.
He had by this time begun to feel faint. His head was somewhat dizzy
and confused from long and frequently holding his breath. He was
bleeding from twenty small wounds, of not one of which he felt the
pain. He was too desperate, too battered, too exhausted, to feel
paltry pain. He knew he had to swim between one wave and another to
the end of that passage, and for the time he thought of nothing else.
At last the moment came, and he thrust himself forward through that
narrow channel with the supreme mental and physical concentration of a
man whose whole being is absorbed in the determination to succeed.
He reached the end of the opening, and found himself in shallow water.
With a dim hazy sense of triumph he staggered to his feet. He was
conscious of smiling. Then he saw standing up before him a grey-green
barrier of water, and then, for awhile, he was conscious of no more.