Page:Ballantyne--The Coral Island.djvu/134

 much amazed at seeing him reappear, well and strong, as we had been at first at his non-appearance; for, to the best of our judgement, he had been nearly ten minutes under water, perhaps longer, and it required no exertion of our reason to convince us that this was utterly impossible for mortal man to do and retain his strength and faculties. It was therefore with a feeling akin to superstitious awe that I held down my hand and assisted him to clamber up the steep rocks. But no such feeling affected Peterkin. No sooner did Jack gain the rocks and seat himself on one, panting for breath, than he threw his arms round his neck, and burst into a flood of tears. "Oh, Jack, Jack!" said he, "where were you? What kept you so long?"

After a few moments Peterkin became composed enough to sit still and listen to Jack's explanation, although he could not restrain himself from attempting to wink every two minutes at me, in order to express his joy at Jack's safety. I say he attempted to wink, but I an bound to add that he did not succeed, for his eyes were so much swollen with weeping, that his frequent attempts only resulted in a series of violent and altogether identical contortions of the face, that were very far from expressing what he intended. However, I knew what the poor fellow meant by it, so I smiled to him in return, and endeavoured to make believe that he was winking.

"Now, lads," said Jack, when we were composed enough to listen to him, "you green object is not a shark; it is a stream of light issuing from a cave in the rocks. Just after I made my dive, I observed that this light came from the side of the rock above which we are now sitting; so I struck out for it, and saw an opening