before them was wild, great waves rushing madly in to shore and then out again, threatening to tear from its cables the mastless yawl that bobbed crazily on the waters.
They waded out through the rising waters, smashed by inrushing waves, shaken by the shifting of the rocks beneath their feet, and finally clambered onto the pitching yawl.
"Cut loose!" shouted Halfdon Husper.
David's ax sliced the cables. The yawl whirled crazily like a cork, then was sucked far, far back out to sea by the waters now receding at mill-race speed from the island—out and out, until the waters halted for a moment in awful dead calm. And from that distance they glimpsed the whole island, with solemn, grinding drum-roll from far beneath, sinking down into the waters.
The last black mass of the island plunged down under the sea. Then the waters around the yawl boiled terrifically and raced wildly with the little boat toward the spot where the island had been, a mad maelstrom of converging currents.
Halfdon Husper thrust the others by main force down into the cabin of the yawl, leaped in after them and slammed the hatchway shut. Next moment they were tossed violently against the walls of the dark cabin as the yawl seemed to stand up on its stern. David, still holding Christa tightly, felt his head strike the cabin wall and knew nothing more.
When he awoke, brilliant sunset light was in his eyes. He was lying on the deck of the yawl, and Christa and his friends were bending anxiously over him. Husper had a great bruise on his face, but the others did not seem injured.
David struggled to sit up, his dazed eyes sweeping the waters. The sea was still heaving and troubled, but the terrific currents had vanished. There was no sign of the island or of any other land anywhere in the tossing blue waste.
David stammered, "The yawl—it wasn't sucked down by the currents, then?"
Von Hausman, his quiet face still pale, said, "No, but it must have been only a reverse under-current that snatched us back out of the maelstrom. The yawl was actually under water when that current gripped us."
O'Riley, drawing a long breath, nodded his flaming head in corroboration. "It's me that was saying my prayers that minute!"
Christa was crying eagerly, "David, we've sighted the smoke of a ship coming—we're going to be picked up!"
His arm encircled her tightly. But for the moment his eyes were not looking at her, but gazing fascinatedly at the heaving waters, into whose green depths the lifeless metal form and shattered castle of the Master had sunk for ever. The child of old Atlantis, he had gone down at last to rejoin his creators in death.
