A quick jerk from Lacey, and the point of the crowbar dangled over Caleb’s head. In an instant, to prevent his losing it in the kelp, he had lashed another and smaller cord about its middle, and with the bar firmly in his hand laid himself flat on the stone. The diver now examined carefully the points of contact between the boulder and the hanging stone, inserted one end of the bar under its edge, sent a warning signal above, braced both feet against the lowering chain, threw his whole strength on the bar, and gave a quick, sharp pull. The next instant the chain tightened; the bar, released from the strain, bounded from his hand; there was a headlong surge of the huge shadowy mass through the waving kelp, and the great block slipped into its place, stirring up the bottom silt in a great cloud of water-dust.
The first stone of the system of enrockment had been bedded!
Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering chain, waited until the water cleared, knocked out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus freeing the chain, and signaled “All clear—hoist.” Then he hauled the crowbar towards him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, moved away from the reach of falling bodies, and sank into a bed of sea-kelp as comfortably as if it had been a sofa-cushion.
These breathing spells rest the lungs of a diver and lighten his work. Being at rest he can manage his dress the better, inflating it so that he is able to get his air with greater ease and regularity. The relief is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the sea.
Caleb did none of these things. He was too expert a diver to allow himself to go to sleep, and he had too much to think about to play with the fish. He sat quietly awaiting his call, his thoughts on the day of the week and how long it would be before Saturday night came again, and whether, when he left that morning, he had arranged everything for the little wife, so that she would be comfortable until his return. Once a lobster moved slowly up and nipped his red fingers with its claw, thinking them some tidbit previously unknown. (The dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof and air-tight band, leaving the hands bare.) At another time two tomcods came sailing past, side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, and scampered off. But Caleb, sitting comfortably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed thirty feet under water, paid little heed to outside things. His eyes only saw a tossing apron and a trim little figure on a cabin porch, as she waved him a last good-by.
In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds and shimmering sea, some changes had taken place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. Hardly had the second stone been made ready to be swung overboard, when there came a sudden uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp waves preceding a heavy storm had strayed in from Montauk and was making straight for the Ledge.
Captain Joe sprang on the sloop’s rail and looked seaward, and a shade of disappointment crossed his face.
“Stand by on that outboard ha’sser!” he shouted in a voice that was heard all over the Ledge.
The heavy outboard hawser holding the sloop whipped out of the sea with the sudden strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and quivered like a fiddle-string. The sloop staggered for an instant, plunged bow under, careened to her rail, and righted herself within oar’s touch of the Ledge. Three feet from her bilge streak crouched a grinning rock with its teeth set!
Captain Joe smiled and looked at Captain Brandt.
“Ain’t nothin’ when ye git used to’t, Cap’n Bob. I ain’t a-goin’ ter scratch ’er paint. Got to bank yer fires. Them other two stone’ll have to wait till the tide turns.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the skipper, throwing the furnace door wide open. The danger was passed for the second time, and in the final test his boat had proved herself. Yet again he did not boast. There was only a fearless ready-to-meet-anything air about him as, with shoulders squared and head up, he walked down the deck and said to Captain Joe, in a tone as if he were only asking for information, but without the slightest shade of anxiety, “If that ’ere ha’sser’d parted, Cap’n Joe, when she give that plunge, it would ’a’ been all up with us,—eh?”
“Yes,—’spec’ so,” answered the captain, his mind, now that the danger had passed, neither on the question nor on the answer. Then suddenly awakening with a look of intense interest, “That line was a new one, Cap’n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose; them kind don’t part.”
Sanford, who had been standing by the tiller, anxiously watching the conflict with the sea, walked forward and grasped the skipper’s hand.
“I want to congratulate you,” he said, “on your sloop and on your pluck. It is not every man can lie around this stone-pile for the first time and keep his head.”
Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, and turned away his face. “Well, sir—ye see”—He never finished the sentence. The compliment had upset him more than the escape of the sloop.
All was bustle now on board the Screamer. The boom was swung in aboard, lowered, and laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up to the surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his shoes and breast-plate taken off. He still wore his dress, so that he could be ready for the other two stones when the tide turned. Meanwhile he walked about the deck looking like a great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard puffed out over his copper collar.
During the interval of the change of tide dinner was announced, and the Screamer’s crew went below to more sizzle and doughballs, and this time a piece of corned beef, while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and Lacey sprang into the sloop’s yawl and sculled for the shanty and their dinner, keeping close to the hawser still holding the sloop.
The unexpected made half the battle at the Ledge. It was not unusual to see a southeast roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the smoothness of a mill-pond by a northwest gale, and before night to find this same dead calm followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an expert could checkmate the consequences of weather manoeuvres like these. Before Captain Joe, sitting at the head of the table, had filled each man’s plate with his fair proportion of cabbage and pork, a whiff of wind puffed in the bit of calico that served as a curtain for the shanty’s pantry window,—the one facing east. Captain Joe sprang from his seat, and, bareheaded as he was, mounted the concrete platforms and looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he saw a little wrinkling line of silver flashing out of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch Island scattered flurries of wind furred the glittering surface of the sea with dull splotches,—as when one breathes upon a mirror. The captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and examined the barometer. It had fallen two points.
“Finish yer dinner, men,” he said quietly. “That’s the las’ stone to-day, Mr. Sanford. It’s beginnin’ ter git lumpy. It’ll blow a livin’ gale o’ wind by sundown.”
A second and stronger puff now swayed the men’s oilskins, hanging against the east door. This time the air was colder and more moist. The sky overhead had thickened. In the southeast lay two sun-dog clouds, their backs shimmering like opals, while about the feverish eye of the sun itself gathered a reddish circle like an inflammation.
Sanford was on the platform, reading the signs of the coming gale. It was important that he should reach Keyport by night, and he had no time to spare. As the men came out one after another, each of them glanced toward the horizon, and quickening his movements fell to work putting the place in order. The loose barrow planks were quickly racked up on the shanty’s roof, out of the wash of the expected surf; an extra safety-guy was made fast to the platform holding the hoisting-engine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the cement and lashed fast. Meanwhile Captain Joe busied himself in examining the turnbuckles of the holding-down rods, which bound the shanty to the Ledge, and giving them another tightening twist, ordering the heavy wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty to be put up, and seeing that the stove-pipe that stuck