Under the Waves by Robert Michael Ballantyne (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

however, in regard to the use of the signal-line-- insomuch that Rooney began to despair.

"Niver mind, boys," he cried, hopefully, "we'll try it."

Accordingly he donned the diving-dress, and teaching his wife how to screw on the bull's-eye, he gave the signal to "pump away."

Of course Chok-foo and Ram-stam, though anxious to do well, did ill continually. When Rooney, standing in the room and looking at them, signalled to give "more air," they became anxious and gave him less, until his dress was nearly empty. When he signalled for "less air" they gave him more, until his dress nearly burst, and then, not having the breast-valve, he was obliged to unscrew his front-glass to prevent an explosion! At last the perplexed man resolved to make his wife do duty as attender to signals, and was fortunate in this arrangement at first, for Molly was quick of apprehension. She soon understood all about it, and, receiving her husband's signals, directed the Chinamen what to do. In order to test his assistants better, he then went out on the verandah of the pagoda, where the pumpers could not see him nor he them. He was, of course, fully dressed, only the bull's-eye was not fixed.

"_Now_, Molly, dear," said he, "go to work just as if I was goin' under water."

Molly dimpled her cheeks with a smile as she held up the glass, and said, "Are ye ready?"

"Not yet; putt your lips here first."

He stooped; Molly inserted part of her face into the circular hole, and a smack resounded in the helmet.

"Now, cushla, I'm ready."

"Pump away, boys," shouted the energetic little woman.

As soon as she heard the hiss of the air in the helmet, she screwed on the bull's-eye, and our diver was as much shut off from surrounding atmosphere as if he had been twenty fathoms under the sea. Then she went to where the pumpers were at work, and taking the air-pipe in one hand and the life-line in the other, awaited signals. These were soon sent from the verandah. More air was demanded and given; less was asked and the pumpers wrought gently. Molly gave one pull at the life-line, "All right?" Rooney replied, "All right." This was repeated several times. Then came four sharp pulls at the line. Molly was on the alert; she bid Ram-stam continue to pump while Chok-foo helped her to pull the diver forcibly out of the verandah into the interior of the pagoda amid shouts of laughter, in which Rooney plainly joined though his voice could not be heard.

"Capital, Molly," exclaimed the delighted husband when his glass was off; "I always belaved--an' I belave it now more than iver--that a purty woman is fit for anything. After a few more experiments like that I'll go down in shallow wather wid an aisy mind."

Rooney kept his word. When he deemed his assistants perfect at their work, he went one morning to the river with all his gear, hired a boat, pushed off till he had got into two fathoms water, and then, dressing himself with the aid of the Chinamen, prepared to descend.

"Are you ready?" asked his wife.

"Yis, cushla, but you've forgot the kiss."

"Am I to kiss _all_ the divers we shall have to do with before sending them down?" she asked.

"If you want _all_ the divers to be kicked you may," was the reply.

Molly cut short further remark by giving the order to pump, and affixing the glass. For a few seconds the diver looked earnestly at the Chinamen and at his better half, who may have been said to hold his life in her hands. Then he stepped boldly on the short ladder that had been let down outside the boat, and was soon lost to view in the multitude of air-bells that rose above him.

Now, Rooney had neglected to take into his calculations the excitability of female nerves. It was all very well for his wife to remember everything and proceed correctly when he was in the verandah of the pagoda, but when she knew that her best-beloved was at the bottom of the sea, and saw the air-bells rising, her courage vanished, and with her courage went her presence of mind. A rush of alarm entered her soul as she saw the boiling of the water, and fancying she was giving too much air, she said hurriedly, "Pump slow, boys," but immediately conceiving she had done wrong, she said, "Pump harder, boys."

The Chinamen pumped with a will, for they also had become excited, and were only too glad to obey orders.

A signal-pull now came for "Less air," but Molly had taken up an idea, and it could not be dislodged. She thought it must be "More air" that was wanted.

"Pump away, boys--pump," she cried, in rapidly increasing alarm.

Chok-foo and Ram-stam obeyed.

The signal was repeated somewhat impatiently.

"Pump away, boys; for dear life--pump," cried the little woman in desperate anxiety.

Perspiration rolled down the cheeks of Chok-foo and Ram-stam as they gasped for breath and turned the handles with all the strength they possessed.

"Pump--oh! Pump--for pity's sake."

She ended with a wild shriek, for at that moment the waves were cleft alongside, and Rooney Machowl came up from the bottom, feet foremost, with a bounce that covered the sea with foam. He had literally been blown up from the bottom--his dress being filled with so much compressed air that he had become like a huge bladder, and despite all his weights, he rolled helplessly on the surface in vain attempts to get his head up and his feet down.

Of course his distracted wife hauled in on the life-line with all her might, and Chok-foo and Ram-stam, forsaking the pump, lent their aid and soon hauled the luckless diver into the boat, when his first act was to deal the Chinamen a cuff each that sent one into the stern-sheets on his nose, and the other into the bow on his back. Immediately thereafter he fell down as if senseless, and Molly, with trembling hands, unscrewed the bull's-eye.

Her horror may be imagined when she beheld the countenance of her husband as pale as death, while blood flowed copiously from his mouth, ears, and nostrils.

"Niver mind, cushla!" he said, faintly, "I'll be all right in a minute. This couldn't have happened if I'd had one o' the noo helmets.--Git off my--"

"Ochone! He's fainted!" cried Mrs Machowl; "help me, boys."

In a few minutes Rooney's helmet was removed and he began to recover, but it was not until several days had elapsed that he was completely restored; so severe had been the consequences of the enormous pressure to which his lungs and tissues had been subjected, by the powerful working of the pump on that memorable day by Ram-stam and Chok-foo.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN.


TREASURE RECOVERED--ACCIDENTS ENCOUNTERED--AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY-- ENEMIES MET AND CIRCUMVENTED.

It is pleasant to loll in the sunshine on a calm day in the stern of a boat and gaze down into unfathomable depths, as one listens to the slow, regular beating of the oars, and the water rippling against the prow-- and especially pleasant is this when one in such circumstances is convalescent after a prolonged and severe illness.

So thought Edgar Berrington one lovely morning, some months after the events related in the last chapter, as he was being rowed gently over the fair bosom of the China sea. The boat--a large one with a little one towing astern--was so far from the coast that no land could be seen. A few sea-gulls sported round them, dipping their wings in the wave, or putting a plaintive question now and then to the rowers. Nothing else was visible except a rocky isle not far off that rose abruptly from the sea.

"Well, we're nearing the spot at last," said Edgar, heaving that prolonged sigh which usually indicates one's waking up from a pleasant reverie. "What a glorious world this is, Baldwin! How impressively it speaks to us of its Maker!"

"Ay, whether in the calm or in the storm," responded Joe.

"Yes; it was under a very different aspect I saw this place last," returned Edgar. "Yonder is the cliff now coming into view, where the vessel we are in search of went down."

"An ugly place," remarked Joe, who was steering the boat. "Come boys, give way. The morning's gittin' on, an' we must set to work as soon as ever we can. Time an' tide, you know, etcetera."

Rooney, Maxwell, Chok-foo, and Ram-stam, who were rowing, bent to their work with a will, but the heavy boat did not respond heartily, being weighted with a large amount of diving gear. Just then a light breeze arose, and the boat, obedient to the higher power, bent over and rippled swiftly on.

The only other individual on board was a Malay--the owner of the boat. He sat on the extreme end of the bow looking with a vacant gaze at the island. He was a man of large size and forbidding, though well-formed, features, and was clothed in a costume, half European half Oriental, which gave little clew to the nature of his profession--except that it savoured a good deal of the sea. His name, Dwarro, was, like his person, nondescript. Probably it was a corruption of his eastern cognomen. At all events it suffered further corruption from his companions in the boat, for Baldwin and Maxwell called him Dworro, while Rooney Machowl named him Dwarry. This diversity of pronunciation, however, seemed a matter of no consequence to the stolid boatman, who, when directly addressed, answered to any name that people chose to give him. He was taciturn--never spoke save when spoken to; and at such times used English so broken that it was difficult to put it together so as to make sense. He was there only in capacity of owner and guardian of the boat. Those who hired it would gladly have dispensed with his services, but he would not let them have it without taking himself into the bargain.

Having reached the scene of the wreck of the _Warrior_, the party at once proceeded to sound and drag for it, and soon discovered its position, for it had not shifted much after slipping off the ledge, where it had met its doom on the night of the storm. Its depth under the surface was exactly twenty-three fathoms, or 138 feet.

"It will try our metal," observed Baldwin, "for the greatest depth that the Admiralty allow their divers to go down is twenty fathom."

"What o' that?" growled Maxwell, "I've worked myself many a time in twenty-three fathom water, an'll do it again any day. _We_ don't need to mind what the Admiralty says. The submarine engineers of London tell us they limit a man to twenty-five fathom, an' they ought to know what's possible if any one should."

"That's true, David," remarked Rooney, as he filled his pipe, "but I've heard of a man goin' down twinty-eight fathom, an' comin' up alive."

"Oh, as to that," said Berrington, "_I_ have heard of one man who descended to thirty-four fathom, at which depth he must have sustained a pressure of 88 and a half pounds on every square inch of his body--and _he_ came up alive, but his case