The skill with which the two men who handled her kept clear of the fatal
current by which Mads had been swept away, showed that both were
practical seamen, and, as he boat neared him, the boy's keen eye
recognized one of them as his own father.
When the rescuers came near enough for a shout to be heard, the father
called out to his son to climb down the crag again and stand ready to
make a plunge when he gave the word, as the boat could not come too
near, for fear of being dashed against the rock.
Just around the foot of the rock itself there was always a strong eddy,
which might suck down Mads even now, if he could not succeed in leaping
clear of it.
For ten minutes or more the two sailors kept "standing off and on," till
the fury of the whirlpool should be completely spent, while the daring
boy, perched on the lowest ledge of the rock, waited and watched for the
signal.
At length his father's powerful voice came rolling to him over the
water:
"Now!"
Mingling with the shout came the splash of Mads' plunge into the water.
Exerting all his strength, the active boy leaped far beyond the
treacherous eddy that would have sucked him down among the sunken rocks,
and in another moment he was safe in the boat, which turned and shot
away from the perilous spot as lightly as the sea birds overhead.
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