Excitedly, in excited gladness his terrors bound up, quickly as he could, catching at his breath as his fears caught him, stifling them in jolly shouts of: "Hold on for me, boy! Why, here I come, boy, this very minute!" he started to make his way, excitedly pursued it. "Hold on for me, boy!" The cliff along the wall of the inlet against which he stood shelved downwards into the dark, still sea. "Here I come, boy!" He went on his face on the table rock and with his legs felt in the water beneath him and behind him. "Hold on for me, boy!" His feet found a ridge, and he lowered himself to it and began to feel his way along it, his hands against the cliff, above his waist the still, dark sea. "Here I come, boy! This very minute!" So he cried: so he came--deeper, and now his perils rose to fight what brought him on. Deeper--the water took his breath. "Here I come, boy!" Stumbled--thought himself gone, knew as it were an icy hand thrust in his vitals from the depths, clutching his very heart. "I'm to you now, boy. Here--" Terror burst in a cry to his mouth. He changed it to "Whoa!" He was brought by the ridge on which he walked to a point opposite what of the slipway before the cave stood dry. The ridge ended abruptly. He had almost gone beyond it, almost slipped and gone, almost screamed. "Whoa!" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Hold on for me, boy!" He took his hands from the cliff and faced about where Mr. Wriford lay. Shaken, he felt his way lower. God, again! Again his foothold terminated! Abruptly he could feel his way no more. Like a hand, like a hand at his throat, the water caught his breath. "Hold on for me, boy!" His voice was thick. "Hold on for me, boy!" Clear again, but he stood, stood, and where he stood the water swayed him. Here the cliff base seemed to drop. Here the depths waited him. Facing his feet he knew must be the wall of the slipway. No more than a long stride--ah, no more! If he launched himself and threw himself, his foot must strike it, his arms come upon its surface where that figure lay. Only a long stride. What, when he made it, if no foothold offered? What if he missed, clutched, fell? He looked across the narrow space. Only that spring's distance that figure lay, its face turned from him. He listened. The silence ached, tingled all about him. Suddenly it gave him from the figure the sound of breathing that came and went in moans.