claimed the Frenchman, laying his hand on the collar
of Ruby's jacket.

The young sailor started, struck the Frenchman a backhanded blow on the
chest, which hurled him violently against the man at the wheel, and,
bending down, sprang with a wild shout into the sea.

So close had he steered to the rock, in order to lessen the danger of
his reckless venture, that the privateer just weathered it. There was
not, of course, the smallest chance of recapturing Ruby. No ordinary
boat could have lived in the sea that was running at the time, even in
open water, much less among the breakers of the Bell Rock. Indeed, the
crew felt certain that the English sailor had allowed despair to
overcome his judgment, and that he must infallibly be dashed to pieces
on the rocks, so they did not check their onward course, being too glad
to escape from the immediate neighbourhood of such a dangerous spot.

Meanwhile Ruby buffeted the billows manfully. He was fully alive to the
extreme danger of the attempt, but he knew exactly what he meant to do.
He trusted to his intimate knowledge of every ledge and channel and
current, and had calculated his motions to a nicety.

He knew that at the particular state of the tide at the time, and with
the wind blowing as it then did, there was a slight eddy at the point of
_Cunningham's Ledge_. His life, he felt, depended on his gaining that
eddy. If he should miss it, he would be dashed against _Johnny Gray's_
rock, or be carried beyond it and cast upon _Strachan's Ledge_ or
_Scoreby's Point_, and no man, however powerful he might be, could have
survived the shock of being launched on any of these rocks. On the
other hand, if, in order to avoid these dangers, he should swim too much
to windward, there was danger of his being carried on the crest of a
billow and hurled upon the weather-side of _Cunningham's Ledge_, instead
of getting into the eddy under its lee.

All this Ruby had seen and calculated when he passed the north end of
the rock the first time, and he had fixed the exact spot where he should
take the plunge on repassing it. He acted so promptly that a few
minutes sufficed to carry him towards the eddy, the tide being in his
favour. But when he was about to swim into it, a wave burst completely
over the ledge, and, pouring down on his head, thrust him back. He was
almost stunned by the shock, but retained sufficient presence of mind to
struggle on. For a few seconds he managed to be