again.

I swam several yards nearer to the rocks and sank once more. This
time, my groping hands found what they were seeking. Far down, almost
at the bottom of the sea, the body of Miss Grant lay.

I passed my hands over her. Her head and arms were clear of the awful
tangle, but both her legs were enmeshed.

Fighting warily and working like one possessed, I tore at the
slithering ropes and bands that bound her. I got one foot and leg
clear, then, with bursting lungs I attacked the other.

It seemed as if I should never get her free. How I fought and
struggled with that damnable sea-growth! fearing and fearing afresh
that I would have to make to the surface for air, or drown where I was.

As I worked frantically, I grew defiant, and decided to drown rather
than leave the girl who had already been far too long under water.

My head throbbed and hammered. My senses reeled and rallied, and
reeled again as I tore and struggled. Then, when hope was leaving me,
I felt something snap. I caught at the body beside me and I drifted
upward, and upward;--I did not know how or where.

The thought flashed through me;--this is the last. It is all over.

I opened my throat to allow the useless carbonised air to escape. I
was conscious of the act and knew its consequences:--a flood of salt
water in my lungs, then suffocation and death. But I did not care now.

My lungs deflated, then--oh! delicious ecstasy!--instead of water, I
drew to my dying body,--air; reviving, life-giving, life-sustaining
oxygen.

I panted and gasped, as life ran through my veins. Blood danced in my
thumping heart. I caught at my reeling senses. I clutched, like a
miser, at the body I held.

I struggled, and opened my eyes.

I was on the surface of the water,--afloat. In my arms, I held the
lady I had wrested from the deadly seaweed.

How well I knew, even in those awful moments, that I was not the cause
of that wonderful rescue. I was present,--true,--but it was the
decreeing of the great, living, but Unseen Power, who had further use
for both of us in the bright old world, who had more work for us to
perform ere he called us to our last accounting.

Well I knew then that every moment of time was more precious than
ordinary hours of reckoning, yet I dared not hurry with my burden
across that short strip of water, lest we should again become entangled.

Foot by foot, I worked my way, until I was clear of the seaweed, then I
kicked