the way it was a tough battle for breath. The foremost was Jim Lewarne,
Farmer Tresidder's hind, with a coil of the farmer's rope slung round
him. Young Zeb followed, and Elias Sweetland, both similarly laden.

Less than half-way down the rock plunged abruptly, cutting off farther
descent.

Jim Lewarne, in a cloud of foam, stood up, slipped the coil over his
head, and unwound it, glancing to right and left. Now Jim amid ordinary
events was an acknowledged fool, and had a wife to remind him of it; but
perch him out of female criticism, on a dizzy foothold such as this, and
set him a desperate job, and you clarified his wits at once.
This eccentricity was so notorious that the two men above halted in
silence, and waited.

Jim glanced to right and left, spied a small pinnacle of rock about
three yards away, fit for his purpose, sidled towards it, and, grasping,
made sure that it was firm. Next, reeving one end of the rope into a
running noose, he flung it over the pinnacle, and with a tug had it
taut. This done, he tilted his body out, his toes on the ledge, his
weight on the rope, and his body inclined forward over the sea at an
angle of some twenty degrees from the cliff.

Having by this device found the position of the wreck, and judging that
his single rope would reach, he swung back, gained hold of the cliff
with his left hand, and with his right caught and flung the leaded end
far out. It fell true as a bullet, across the wreck. As it dropped, a
sea almost swept it clear; but the lead hitched in a tangle of cordage
by the port cathead; within twenty seconds the rope was caught and made
fast below.