“This kind of thing is rather strenuous when you’re not used to it,” he grumbled.
Jimmy was glad of a moment’s rest; but immediately there came a cry from Moran. “Watch out! Where you going to?”
Looking round, they saw the Cetacea’s bowsprit close above their heads as she lurched toward them on the back of a smooth sea. Pulling hard, with the hampering rope across her, they got the dory round, and afterward rowed steadily, while their breath came short and the sweat dripped from them. It was exhausting work; but Bethune pointed out the fact that they had not embarked on a pleasure excursion.
At last Moran dropped anchor; and, boarding the sloop, the men spent an hour of keen suspense watching the sea. The island had faded to a faint, dark blur, and all round the rest of the circle an unbroken wall of mist rested on the smoothly lifting swell. None of them had anything to say; they smoked in anxious silence, their eyes fixed on the glassy water which gave no sign of hiding anything below.
Bethune impatiently jumped up.
“This is too tedious for me!” he exclaimed. “Can’t we sweep for the wreck from the dory with the bight of a line?”
“You want to keep fresh,” Moran warned him. “If she’s there, she’ll show up before long.”
They waited, Jimmy quietly glancing at his watch now and then; and at last Moran stretched out a pointing hand.
“What’s that, to starboard?” he asked.
For a few moments, during which the tension set their nerves on edge, the others saw nothing; and then a faint ripple broke the glassy surface of the swell. It smoothed out and the long heave swung undisturbed across the spot for a time; but the ripple appeared again, with a dark streak in the midst of it.
“Weed!” cried Bethune. “It must grow on something!”
“I guess so,” said Moran. “It’s fast to a ship’s timber.”
Five minutes later the head of the timber was visible, and in keen but silent excitement they took out a line to it and hove the sloop close up. The diving pumps were already rigged, and when they had lowered and lashed a ladder, Moran coolly put on the heavy canvas dress. He said that, as the show was his, he would go down first. It was with grave misgivings that his companions screwed on the copper helmet and hung the lead weights about him, for neither of them knew anything about the work except what they had learned from a pamphlet issued by a maker of diving apparatus. This they had diligently studied and argued over on the voyage up, but there was the unpleasant possibility that it might not contain all the information needful, and a small oversight might have disastrous consequences.
When the copper helmet sank below the surface and a train of bubbles rushed up, Jimmy felt his heart beat and his hand grow damp with perspiration. He held the signal line and knew the code, as well as the number of strokes to the minute that should give air enough; but he had not much confidence in the pumps. Though he had had to pay a heavy deposit on them, and their hire was costly, they were far from new. The bubbles moved, however, drawing nearer the weed-crusted wood.
Suddenly the line jerked, and Bethune looked at Jimmy sharply.
“More air!” he cried. “Give her a few more revolutions – he’s all right so far.”
It was a relief to both when the bubbles moved back toward the ladder, and when the diver crawled on board they eagerly unscrewed the helmet. Moran gasped once or twice and wiped his face before he turned to them.
“It’s not too bad after the first minute or two,” he said, and this was the only allusion he made to his sensations. “Now, so far as I can make out, there’s no getting into her from the deck. Poop’s badly smashed, and you’d certainly foul the pipe or line among the broken beams; but it looks pretty clear in the hold. Guess we’ll have to break through the after bulkhead; but it’s sanded up and there’s a pile of stuff to move. You’re sure about the strong-room, Bethune?”
“I took some trouble to find out, and was told it was under the poop cabin. I couldn’t get a plan of her.”
“We’ll try the bulkhead.” Moran turned to Jimmy. “If you’re going next, take the shovel and see if you can shift some of the sand.”
Jimmy was not a timid man, but he felt far from happy as his comrades encased him in the dress and helmet. He found them an intolerable weight as he moved toward the ladder and went down it, clinging tightly to the rungs, and then, as a green mist crept across the glasses, he was conscious of an unnerving fear. Struggling with it, he descended, and was next troubled by a pain in his head and an unpleasant feeling of pressure. Something throbbed in his ears, his breathing did not seem normal, and he stopped, irresolute, at the foot of the ladder. He could see a short distance, but it was like looking through dirty, greenish glass, and the wavering light had puzzling reflections in it. He watched the air globules rush to the surface and the shadow of the sloop’s bottom move to and fro; and then he fixed his eyes on a badly defined dark object which he supposed was the wreck.
As he reluctantly let go the ladder he was surprised by another change. Instead of carrying a crushing weight, he felt absurdly light and, in spite of his weighted boots, it was difficult to keep his balance. His feet did not fall where he intended, and when he moved the shovel he carried, the motion of his arm was not perfectly controllable. It seemed to him that if the stream were strong, he must hopelessly float away; but he resolutely pulled himself together. He had not spent all his money and made a daring voyage to be daunted by a few unusual sensations. It was his business to break into the wreck; and he made his way cautiously toward her. Stopping at the place where her after-half had broken off, he saw in front of him a dark cavern, edged with ragged planking and parted timbers and garlanded with long streamers of weed. They uncoiled and wavered as the sea washed in and out, and Jimmy felt a strong reluctance to enter. The darkness might hide strange and dangerous creatures; for a few moments he allowed his imagination to run riot like that of a frightened child.
This, however, must be stopped. Jimmy remembered that he was supplied with an electric lamp. He fumbled clumsily with the switch, and, as a wavering beam of light ran through the water, he cautiously entered the hold. Sand had filled up the hollows among the stone ballast, and there was only a broken orlop beam in his way. He began to feel easier, reflecting that he was, after all, only a short distance beneath the surface; though he would have preferred more experienced assistants at the pumps. Making his way aft beside the shaft tunnel, he presently reached a bank of sand which ran up to the splintered deck. The bulkhead shutting off the lazaret was obviously behind it, and Jimmy began to use the shovel.
It proved difficult work. A vigorous movement upset his unstable equilibrium, and he wondered whether the weight he carried and the pressure applied were adapted to the depth. This could be ascertained only by experiment; and Jimmy feared to make it. Gripping himself, however, he removed a few shovelfuls of sand; and then the pain in his head got worse, and, driving in the shovel deeper than before, he fell forward with the effort. Instead of coming to the ground, he made some ridiculous gyrations before he recovered his footing; and then the signal line, which he felt at to reassure himself, seemed tauter than it should be.
Grabbing up the shovel, Jimmy commenced his retreat. The line might be foul of something, and if so there was a danger of the air pipe’s entanglement. It was disconcerting to contemplate the result of that. When he left the hull he felt a strong inclination to kick off his leaded shoes and try to swim to the surface instead of slowly mounting the ladder; but he conquered it and climbed up.
When at last the glasses were unscrewed and the air flowed in on his face, Jimmy was conscious of intense relief. For a minute he sat limply on the cabin top.
“I dare say we’ll get accustomed to the thing,”