The fun grew fast and furious as, one after another, valiant men and boys started along the pole, and, sooner or later, plunged, gasping and struggling, into, the depths.  Some got as far as half-way, others succumbed in the first three steps, but all alike went down, and the various methods of their falling were sufficient to keep the spectators in roars of laughter.  Finally a black boy achieved a meteoric progress, shuffling sideways along the pole so swiftly that it seemed he gave his feet no time to slip until almost at the very end, where the pole narrowed in what Tom termed an inhuman fashion.  Then he shot into space: but, even in falling, he grasped the flag, and brought it proudly with him from the bottom of the lake.