Bear a hand, Bill, will ye ?" So saying, the speaker and his comrade, with a catlike ease that came naturally to them from their practice at sea, where they had a rolling deck beneath their feet much more difficult to traverse than the slippery slope they were now on, had reached the spot where the coatless old sailor stood almost as these words were uttered, leaping down the steep descent in a sort of `hop-skip-and-jump' fashion.
"None o' that!" exclaimed the elder of the two men who had previously spoken, grasping hold of one of the Captain's arms while his mate, or `Bill,' caught hold of the other.

"A-going to make away with yourself, eh?
Not if we knows it, sir!" At the same instant, however, Captain Dresser turned round with a face on which the animated expression produced by his determination to try and rescue the boys was mingled with a puzzled look of astonishment at being tackled in this unceremonious manner when on the very point of action.
His black eyes twinkled and his bushy eyebrows moved up and down at a fine rate as he looked up indignantly to see who had dared to lay hand on him.
"My stars!" ejaculated the coastguardsman Bill, dropping hold of the Captain's arm as if it had been a hot poker, "I'm blest if it ain't the old cap'en!" The other man also recognised him at the same time, releasing the old man equally hurriedly.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said.

"Didn't know it wer' you, sir!" But the Captain made no reply to this apology.
He only pointed to the water just below where they were standing, and where the head of Rover could be dimly seen in the gathering dusk of the evening, now rapidly closing in, splashing his way to the shore.
"Boys--save--quick--drown!" he stammered out brokenly.

"Quick, quick!" The men did not require any further explanation or incentive.
Without stopping to doff a garment, in they both plunged, boots and all; and, before the Captain knew that they were gone from his side, they had reached poor Rover, now quite exhausted, gallant dog though he was! Then, one of the men grasping hold of Bob and the other catching hold of Dick, they swam with the two boys between them, still locked together, to the end of the rampart wall that jutted out over the water.
Here the Captain was ready and waiting to lean over and lend them a hand, keeping the while a steady purchase to his feet by the aid of his malacca stick, which possibly had never been of such service before; and, presently, the coastguardsmen, the boys, and Rover, who would not let go his young master's collar and was lifted out along with him, were all once more again on firm ground.
By this time, a small crowd of spectators had collected on the spot, composed principally of persons who had come out for a walk round the castle and had their attention arrested by the scene passing in the water below.
The majority of these now, in company with Mrs Gilmour and Nellie, hurried to the lower part of the rampart, which, on the side nearer the harbour, did not shelve down there so abruptly, broadening out by degrees to a wide flat surface where it joined the esplanade bordering the beach.
At this spot, the coastguardsmen laid down the rescued boys, who were quite insensible from their long immersion; when Rover, at length satisfied that his young master was ashore and in safe hands, was persuaded to loose his grip of Bob's collar, contenting himself by venting his joy in a series of bounds and barks around his inanimate form and licking his apparently lifeless face.
Both Mrs Gilmour and the weeping Nellie thought they were dead.
"Poor boys!" sobbed the former, her tears falling in sympathy with those of the little girl, who was too stunned to speak.

"But, what shall I say to Bob's mother?
How can I tell her he is drowned ?" "Drowned?
Not a bit of it--no more drowned than you are!" repeated the Captain, somewhat snappishly, his anxiety and excitement preventing him from speaking calmly, as he turned and bent over the inanimate bodies.
"Help me, men, to rouse them back to life." The coastguardsmen bent down, too, and lifting the boys up were proceeding to lay them down again on their faces, when the Captain stopped them.
"You idiots!" he exclaimed.