"Oh, for God's sake, set me down." "Now I've to raise you." He began to press upwards with his arms, raising his burden high on his chest. "Wade out and drown me," Mr. Wriford cried. "If you've any mercy, for God's sake drown me!" "You're to obey me, boy. By God, you shall obey me, or I'll hurt you worse. Catch in my hair. Hold yourself up by my hair. High as you can. Up, up!" He staggered upon the steps he had constructed; he gained the pedestal he had made. He thought the strain had become insupportable to him and that he must fall with it. "Now when I lift you, boy, keep yourself up. I'll bring you to my head and then set you back." He called upon himself supremely--raised and failed, raised and failed again. "Now, boy, now!" He got Mr. Wriford to the ledge and thrust him back; himself he clung to the ledge and almost senseless swayed between his hands and feet. Presently he looked up. "You're safe now, boy." Mr. Wriford watched him with eyes that scarcely seemed to see: he scarcely seemed to be conscious. "I had to speak sharply to you, boy." Mr. Wriford advanced a hand to him, and he took it and held it. "There was nothing in what I said, boy." He felt the fingers move in his that covered them. "I had to cry out," Mr. Wriford said weakly. "I couldn't help it." "You were brave, boy, brave. You're safe now. The water will come to you. But you're safe." "Come up!" said Mr. Wriford. "Come up!" "I've to rest a moment, boy," Mr. Puddlebox answered him. He held that hand while he stood resting. He closed his fingers upon it when presently he spoke again. Now the sea had deepened all about, deep to his knees where he stood. As if the slipway before the cave while it stood dry had somehow abated its volume, it seemed to rise visibly and swiftly now that this last barrier was submerged. All about the walls of the inlet deeply and darkly it swelled, licking the walls and running up them in little wavelets, as beasts of prey, massed in a cage, massing and leaping against the bars. "There's no great room for me beside you, boy," Mr. Puddlebox said and pressed the fingers that he held. "Come up," said Mr. Wriford. "Quickly--quickly!" Mr. Puddlebox looked at the narrow ledge and turned his head this way and that and looked again upon the sea. III Now, while he looked and while still he waited, the sea's appearance changed. A wind drove in from seaward and whipped its placid surface. Black it had been, save where the high moon silvered it; grey as it flickered and as it swelled about the cliff it seemed to go. It had welled and swelled; now, from either side the pulpit rock that guarded their inlet, it drove in in steeply heaving mass that flung within the cave and all along the cliff and that the cave and cliff flung back. It were as if one with a whip packed this full cage fuller yet, and as though those caged within it leapt here and there and snapped the air with flashing teeth.