It would have excited even the most phlegmatic had they witnessed the gallant manner in which the youth battled his way against that terrible sea. For, during a time, he actually seemed to be about effecting his purpose. It is true that, when forced by temporary exhaustion to ride the incoming billows, he was often swept almost ashore again: but by a few skillful plunges he would regain the ground which he had lost, and even more. Now an intervening billow, towering far towards the sky, would hide him completely from the gaze of his anxious comrades; and often his disappearance would be so prolonged, that the spectators would tremble again for his safety. Now, just when all gave him up for lost, he would shoot into sight once more, rising on the side of another approaching billow, and shaking, as he rose, the water from his hair, like a Newfoundland emerging after a dive. One moment his form would be seen, standing out in bold relief against the polished side of a wave, and the next it would be half concealed amid a whirlwind of foam that rushed over the crest of the breaker. At one time nearly half the distance between the shore and wreck had been conquered. The worst was apparently over. “He’ll do it,” cried Mullen, excitedly. “What a brave fellow he is! I never could have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” “Ah!” suddenly interrupted Major Gordon, as a tremendous billow was seen approaching the swimmer, and forgetting that his warning could not be heard, and would have been useless if it could, he shouted— “Look out, look out!” For one instant it came on, heaping its mass of waters up continually higher, towering and towering until the spectators fairly ran cold with horror. Then, curling majestically over, away up against the sky, it poured downwards like some huge cataract in one vast mountain of foam, a pistol shot out beyond where the waves usually broke. The swimmer had seen it coming, and had plunged through it with steadfast courage, but apparently in vain; for the shattered waters rolled past him, yet he remained still invisible. Another gigantic wave was seen rising close in the wake of its predecessor, yet he did not emerge. The minutes appeared hours. Then the second wave broke and came on, racing after the other, covering the sea with its whitened fragments. “It’s the rope that’s dragging him down,” cried Mullen. “He could have done it alone, but the weight of the line, and the strain on it shorewards, are too much for him. He’ll drown, if we don’t pull him in, and that at once.” “Hold,” cried Major Gordon, authoritatively, as several sprang to aid Mullen with the rope. “There he comes again. Don’t you see him? He’s alive and safe. But he’s lost way terribly,” he added, “in those two surges.”