They paid out the rope hand over hand, prone on the turf (by Grace's advice) so as not to be visible from below, for the moonlight was strengthening. The rope itself ran down in a kind of big groove in the rock, so that as they descended they would be almost hidden in the shadow.
"It should be long enough," said Algy. "I allowed plenty." He was peeling off his raincoat, and stood in bathing costume like the other two. "Who goes first?"
"Final orders," said Patricia "tuck the artillery up in your belts and mind it doesn't clank against the rock; don't make one millionth of a splash swimming; and don't talk you know how sound travels over water. Now, good luck to everyone! Follow your leader
Before either of the men could stop her she had twisted over the edge with the rope in her hands, and was sliding down, bracing herself off the cliff wall with her feet.
She was strong and without fear, and the rope was longer than it need have been. She still had hold of it when her feet grounded on the pebbly beach with the water lapping round her knees.
She stepped back and waved her arm.
Algy stood beside her in a minute, and Orace joined them after a similar interval. Without a word they waded in and pushed off. All three were strong swimmers, but one of them had a dud leg and another was still recovering from the effects of that glancing bullet across his skull. Before them lay two miles of sea, and at the end of it a desperately daring hazard.
The water was ideally calm and not too chilly for the distance. Patricia, who was like a fish in the water, hung a length behind the others, so that she could see if either of them crocked up. She turned over on her side and nestled her ear into the water, ploughing on with long, easy, noiseless strokes.
At that particular moment Mr. Central Detective Inspector Carn and his posse were plodding wearily through the darkness toward Baycombe, their car having broken down with twelve miles still to go, and the prospects of getting a lift on that lonely road, at the hour of the night, being exactly nil.
Chapter XVI
IN THE SWIM
To fall one hundred and sixty feet takes just a shade over three seconds, but it seems a lot longer. Simon Templar knew this very vividly, for he seemed to live through three aeons between the instant of sickening breathlessness when he felt the cut-away flooring giving way under his weight, through the four odd pulsebeats of hurtling down and down into darkness, till he struck water with a stinging splash.
He sank like a plummet, and struck out mightily for the surface. He must have gone deep, for by the time his head came up his heart was pounding furiously and his chest felt as if it were about to cave in under the pressure. He drew a giant's breath, and choked at the end of it, for, unsuspecting, he had let himself be sucked under again. The undertow was terrific. He kicked out with all his strength, and as he rose again, gasping and spitting, his hand touched stone and got a grip on it instinctively. In spite of his experience, he still misjudged the power of the current: his hold was all but broken as soon as he obtained it, and his arm was nearly jerked from its socket with the strain. With an exertion of every bit of force he could rally, he drew himself up with his shoulder muscles, thrashing the water with his legs, until he got the fingers of his other hand crooked over that providential ledge. There he hung, panting, with the sinews of his arms taut and creaking, while he shook the water out of his eyes and tried to get his bearings.
Already he had been swept some distance from where he had fallen it must have been a longish way, reckoning by the force of the stream as measured by the pull on his arms. The blackness was not complete, fortunately. His eyes were already used to the darkness, and so he was able to take in the surroundings comparatively well by the faint phosphorescent light which filtered up, apparently, from the surface, of the water.
He had been dropped into some sort of subterranean river. His handhold was a rough projection in the rock wall of the cavern through which the stream ran. The cave was no more than a dozen' feet wide, but the vaulted roof arched over a good twenty-five feet from the surface: during the centuries of its mill-race career the river must have worn itself deeper and deeper into its bed. "Mill-race" was a good description. The superficial smoothness of the water was no guide to the murderous speed and power of the current. The Saint wondered what beneficent deity had placed that shelf of rock directly under his flailing hand, for without it he would undoubtedly have been dragged down and drowned in a few minutes. Even now he wasn't out of the wood: the agonizing twinges of overworked muscle were throbbing up and down his arms, and though he had fingers of steel they wouldn't stand up to that gruelling tension indefinitely.
Clearly the great thing was to slip the clutch of the torrent which was patiently struggling to pluck him away and haul him down to the death which had been arranged for him. The Saint pulled himself up a few inches to test his muscles, and groaned, for he had been weakening faster than he realized. He let himself down again for a second's rest and set his teeth. Perhaps he prayed. . . . Then he took and held a deep breath, and heaved again. He edged up six inches ... seven ... eight.... There he stopped to breathe again. Even that slight drawing of his body from the clasp of the rushing water lessened the stress, and he tackled the next effort with a better heart. This time he brought his chin over the ledge, and one of his feet, scrabbling for help against the submerged face of the rock, lodged in a cranny and enabled him to get enough support from his legs partially to relax his arms and hands while he gathered strength for a final spurt.
He looked up, wondering now whether this strenuous climbing was only going to lead to a postponement of the end to a cramped and painful clinging to the stone until his endurance petered out and he slipped and fell again into those evil waters. And then he had difficulty in stopping himself wasting precious energy in a resounding cheer, for he saw a wide black opening in the rock some ten feet over his head. That was certainly a recess where he could lie down and rest almost indefinitely. It seemed as if the kind gods were giving him all the breaks that afternoon.
"Not yet, my Tiger, not yet," muttered the Saint, with all his old indomitable jauntiness flooding back. "Shoals of people have sweated like Harry to bump me off, but I'm beginning to think it can't be done!"
The sight of that prospective refuge was enormously encouraging, and he felt new reserves of strength tingle into his body. He shifted his grip to another narrow angle of rock at arm's length overhead, and with a long pull he managed to hitch himself right out of the water and get his toes on to the ledge which had saved his life, while his hands moved up from crevice to crevice in the stone; so that when he paused again he was standing straight up, flattened out against the rock, with the river slinking past clear beneath him.
The opening he had seen was temptingly near now, and in his eagerness he nearly overreached himself. He flung his weight on to a jutting bit of rock without first testing it, and it broke away in his hand. He was left swinging by three fingers of his left hand in a hold barely an inch deep, and it was several nerve-racking and muscle-racking seconds before he found fresh holds. Thereafter he proceeded with more circumspection, and eventually scrambled over the rim of the ledge he had marked down with no further mishap.
He stretched himself out on his back and closed his eyes. Now that the immediate peril was past, reaction came. In the ordinary way his nerves were faultless, but perhaps the prefatory shock of the fall, followed by the awful sensation of being swirled helplessly down into the depths of the underground river, had between them succeeded in undermining some of his confidence. He felt utterly weary, and he was shaking in every limb though this could have been largely due to the reaction of relaxing muscles and tendons. It was some time before he was able to roll over on his side and peer down at the treacherous, glimmering sheen of smooth water a dozen feet below. Unenviable as his position still was, the Saint contrived a twisted grin.