Dutch the Diver: or, A Man's Mistake

Dutch obeyed without a word, and his face began to resume its natural aspect.

“That was a near touch, Mr Dutch, sir,” growled the old fellow. “You would stop down too long.”

“Too long?” said Dutch faintly, as he tried to sit up.

“No, no, be still for a few minutes,” said the doctor, who had been pushing up the india-rubber bands of his sleeve, and feeling the sufferer’s pulse, to Rasp’s great disgust.

“Who said I stopped down too long?” said Dutch faintly, as Hester crouched at his head, with her hands to her face.

“I did,” growled Rasp. “You shouldn’t have overdone it the first time.”

“I did not stay down too long,” said Dutch angrily, but in rather a feeble way. “The supply of air was stepped.”

“What!” cried Rasp, fiercely.

“I say the wind was stopped.”

“Hark at him,” cried Rasp, looking round from one to the other. “Hark at that, Mister Parkley, and you, too, captain. Why, I sooperintended it all myself, and the supply never stopped for a moment.”

Hester shuddered.

“Here he goes and overdoes it, gets fightin’ sharks, and stopping down about twiced as long as he should the first time, and then says the pumping was checked.”

“You must have got the tube kinked,” said Dutch, sitting up. “Take off these weights.”

“You must, you mean,” said Rasp, unhooking the leaden pads from breast and back; and while he was so engaged Hester looked wildly round in a desperate resolve to tell all, but her eyes dropped directly as she shuddered, for just at her husband’s feet stood Lauré, and she felt that she dare not tell the secret that seemed to be driving her mad.

“Here you goes right under the schooner, and must have hitched the chube in the ladder; that’s what you must have done.”

“There, it’s of no use to argue with you, Rasp,” said Dutch. “I’m all right again now, thank you, doctor; but I’m sure of one thing: the supply of air was stopped somehow, and I’ve had a bit of a shaking.”

“And I’m sure it just wasn’t,” growled Rasp. “Everything went just as it should go. There!”

Dutch rose without assistance, and as he did so Hester, with a sigh of misery, shrank away, feeling that she could never look upon his face again.

“But I have saved his life,” she sighed to herself. “I have saved his life;” and then, shuddering with horror, and asking herself whether the time had not come when she had better die, she crept slowly to the cabin stairs, descended, and, sinking into a chair by her cot, sat there and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Dutch smiled with pleasure as he stood up and found that he could take a few steps here and there without feeling his brain reel, for Oakum took off his old straw hat, waved it round his head, and the men gave a hearty cheer.

“It weer too bad o’ you though to stop his wind Rasp, owd mate,” growled Oakum, in the old diver’s ear.

Rasp looked daggers at him, and then proceeded to wipe and polish the helmet, from which he had been removing some grains of sand.

“Have a cigar, Mr Pugh,” said Wilson, holding out his case, and then shaking hands, an example followed by Mr Parkley, the captain, and John Studwick, who stood looking at him with admiration.

“I have done nothing but shake your hands for the last ten minutes, Mr Pugh,” said the doctor, warmly, “but we may as well shake hands again, though really our old friend Rasp here, with his rough-and-ready means, was principal attendant.”

“Humph!” growled Rasp, “I do get the credit for that, then. Stopped the wind, indeed! Here, you nigger, just leave that pump alone.”

This last to ’Pollo, who was curiously inspecting the machine, and who strutted off with his opal eyes rolling and his teeth grinning indignation at being called a nigger.

“Well, Pugh,” said Mr Parkley, who so far had been able to restrain his impatience, but who longed to hear the result of the investigation, “I must congratulate you on your brave encounter with the shark.”

“And wanted me to haul you up,” growled Rasp.

“There was not much bravery in it,” said Dutch, who was now smoking as composedly as if nothing had occurred, while the water that had streamed from his india-rubber suit was fast drying on the sun-baked deck. “I was well-armed; my enemy was not.”

“Wasn’t he?” growled Rasp, giving a vicious rub at the helmet. “What do you call them teeth? But, then, we divers are not skeered about a shark or two.”

“Do you feel well enough to talk about your descent, Pugh?” said Mr Parkley.

“I feel well enough to go down again,” said Dutch smiling; “but this time I must have a sharp-pointed iron rod to probe the sand.”

“I’m a-going down next,” said Rasp. “It’s my turn.”

“But what is your opinion? What have you made out?” said Mr Parkley.

“Almost nothing,” replied Dutch. “If there is anything below there, it is buried deep in sand, which, I think, we must blast away, for it runs back as fast as it is dug.”

“Then you found absolutely nothing,” said Mr Parkley, while the others waited eagerly for the young man’s answer.

“Unless this proves to be something,” replied Dutch, taking the shelly mass from his net basket and handing it to his partner.

Mr Parkley received it with trembling hands.

“It is heavy,” he said, turning it over and over. “Here Rasp, a hammer, quick.”

The old fellow handed a bright steel-headed tool, with the ordinary hammer head on one side, but a sharp wedge-shaped edge at the other, and with this Mr Parkley chipped away the small barnacles and other shells conglomerated together, and at about the fourth stroke laid bare something bright and shining.

“My dear Dutch,” cried his partner, dropping the hammer, “we are right. Look – silver!”

He wrung Dutch’s hand vigorously, as the young man’s face flushed with pleasure; and then, picking up the hammer, he struck off the remainder of the shelly concretion, and passed round a blackened wedge-shaped ingot of about a couple of pounds weight, and undoubtedly of fine silver.

“Here, lay hold of the legs of this soot,” cried Rasp eagerly, as he seized the second suit which lay ready on a seat. “I’m a-going down dreckly.”

“We’d better wait first, and make some definite plan of action,” said Mr Parkley, who was nearly as excited as his old assistant.

“No, we hadn’t,” said Rasp, shuffling into the india-rubber garments. “Only just have that there ladder shifted over to port. You can make your plans while I go down tother side and feels about with the iron rod. You two’s administrative; I’m zeketive. I shan’t be happy unless I has a go in.”

The point was yielded, the ladder shifted over to the other side, and in a few minutes Rasp had taken the keen knife and stuck it in his belt, thrown down a long iron rod, and declared himself ready.

“I shall set to work where you left that there spade,” he said. “You’ll see as the wind ain’t stopped, Mr Parkley, sir?”

“Of course,” was the reply.

“And you’ll see as the chube ain’t in no kinks, Mr Pug;” he continued, with a dry chuckling laugh, “and so will I.”

“You may laugh, Rasp,” said Dutch, good-humouredly, “but you will not alter my opinion about it at all.”