The instant they were so, Corrie said, "Now we must go down to the foot of the cliff, and look for poor Bumpus. Oh, dear me! I doubt he is killed."
The look of horror which all three cast over the stupendous precipice showed that they had little hope of ever again seeing their rugged friend alive. But, without wasting time in idle remarks, they at once hastened to the foot of the cliff by the shortest route they could find. Here, after a short time, they discovered the object of their solicitude lying, apparently dead, on his back among the rocks.
When Bumpus struck the water, after being tossed over the cliff, his head was fortunately downward; and his skull, being the thickest and hardest bone in his body, had withstood the terrible shock to which it had been subjected without damage, though the brain within was, for a time, incapacitated from doing duty. When John rose again to the surface, after a descent into unfathomable water, he floated there in a state of insensibility. Fortunately the wind and tide combined to wash him to the shore, where a higher swell than usual launched him among the coral rocks, and left him there, with only his feet in the water.
"Oh! here he is,--hurrah!" shouted Corrie, on catching sight of the prostrate form of the seaman. But the boy's manner changed the instant he observed the color of the man's face, from which all the blood had been driven, leaving it like a piece of brown leather.
"He's dead," said Alice, wringing her hands in despair.
"P'raps not," suggested Poopy, with a look of deep wisdom, as she gazed on the upturned face.
"Anyhow, we must haul him out of the water," said Corrie, whose chest heaved with the effort he made to repress his tears.
Catching up one of Bumpus's huge hands, the boy ordered Alice to grasp the other. Poopy, without waiting for orders, seized hold of the hair of his head, and all three began to haul with might and main. But they might as well have tried to pull a line-of-battle ship up on the shore. The man's bulky form was immovable. Seeing this, they changed their plan, and, all three grasping his legs, slewed him partially round, and thus drew his feet out of the water.
"Now we must warm him," said Corrie, eagerly; for, the first shock of the discovery of the supposed dead body of his friend being over, the sanguine boy began to entertain hopes of resuscitating him. "I've heard that the best thing for drowned people is to warm them: so, Alice, do you take one hand and arm, Poopy will take the other, and I will take his feet, and we'll all rub away till we bring him to; for we must, we _shall_ bring him round."