“This fine big nigger of mine will carry a rope ashore. He can swim like a duck, and there’s nobody aboard with half his strength.” “Aye, aye, Jack!” exclaimed O’Shea. “I will give him a heaving-line, and when he hits the beach he can haul a light hawser ashore and make it fast.” Jiminez had no need to strip for active service, clad as he was only in tattered dungaree breeches chopped off above the knees. It was apparent that he proposed risking his life because the soldier had asked it of him. For the lives of the others he cared not a snap of his finger. Knotting an end of the heaving-line around his waist, he poised himself upon the guard-rail, a herculean statue of ebony. Gorham grasped his hand and said in farewell: “You keep on going, Jiminez, old boy, or I’ll cave in your cocoanut with the butt of my Springfield.” The negro grinned and shot downward into the foaming sea. His round head and gleaming shoulders emerged for an instant and then he dived again to pass under the toppling crest of a breaker. A few overhand strokes, and he was in the deeper water with a hundred yards of comparatively easy swimming. He ploughed through it with tremendous ease and power while Captain O’Shea paid out the heaving-line in his wake. Turning on his back, Jiminez rested before the final struggle with the surf on the beach. The people on the _Fearless_ forgot their forlorn situation. They were absorbed in the picture of the bright, hot sand, the dazzling wall of surf, with the gulls dipping and screaming overhead, and the tossing figure of the black swimmer. Jiminez vanished in the outer line of breakers, bobbed into view for an instant, and was whirled over and over. The undertow caught him and pulled him down, but he fought clear and came to the surface, now beaten seaward, now gaining a yard or so. From the tug it looked as though he were being battered about like a piece of drifting wreckage, but the sea could not drown him. More than once the beholders were sure he had been conquered. Then they shouted as they saw him shoot landward on the crested back of a rearing comber. He felt the sand with his feet. He was knocked down and rolled back, but regained a foothold and resisted the drag of the out-rushing waves. Wading powerfully, he stumbled into shallow water and fell on his knees, too exhausted to walk, and crawled on all fours to the dry sand. There he sprawled on his back like a dead man, while the hearts of those on board the _Fearless_ beat slow and heavy with suspense. A little while and Jiminez staggered to his feet, shook himself like a dog, and made for the timbers of the old wreck. Making the end of the heaving-line fast, he threw his arms over his head as a signal.