und it, when Nan, flinging forward to the right, caught a slippery
ledge of rock with her two hands and held on. Barry didn't think she
could hold on for more than a second against the swinging seas, or, if
she did, could consolidate her position. But he did not know the full
power of Nan's trained, acrobatic body. Slipping her shoulder from
Gerda's clutch, she grasped instead Gerda's right hand in her left, and
with her other arm and with all her sinuous, wiry strength, heaved
herself onto the rock and there flung her body flat, reaching out her
free hand to Barry. Barry caught it just in time, as he was being swung
on a wave outwards, and pulled himself within grip of the rock, and in
another moment he lay beside her, and between them they hauled up Gerda.

Gerda gasped "Kay," and they saw him struggling twenty yards behind.

"Can you do it?" Barry shouted to him, and Kay grinned back.

"Let you know presently.... Oh yes, I'm all right. Getting on fine."

Nan stood up on the rock, watching him, measuring with expert eye the
ratio between distance and pace, the race between Kay's swimming and the
sea. It seemed to her to be anyone's race.

Barry didn't stand up. The strain of the swim had been rather too much
for him, and in his violent lurch onto the rock he had strained his side.
He lay flat, feeling battered and sick.

The sea, Nan judged after another minute of watching, was going to beat
Kay in this race. For Kay's face had turned a curious colour, and he was
blue round the lips. Kay's heart was not strong.

Nan's dive into the tossing waves was as pretty a thing as one would wish
to see. The swoop of it carried her nearly to Kay's side. Coming up she
caught one of his now rather limp hands and put it on her left shoulder,
saying "Hold tight. A few strokes will do it."

Kay, who was no fool and who had known that he was beaten, held tight,
throwing all his exhausted strength into striking out with his other
three limbs.

They were carried round the point, beyond reach of it had not Barry's
outstretched hand been ready. Nan touched it, barely grasped it, just and
no more, as they were swung seawards. It was enough. It pulled them to
the rock's side. Again Nan wriggled and scrambled up, and then they
dragged Kay heavily after them as he fainted.

"Neat," said Barry to Nan, his appreciation of a well-handled job, his
love of spirit and skill, rising as it were to cheer, in spite of his
exhaustion and his co