Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters by R. M. Ballantyne (read book txt) 📖

He was a friend o’ mine that managed that job. Tarry, we called him—though that wasn’t his right name. This is how it was. The fleet was blazin’ away at the fortifications, an’ of coorse the fortifications—out o’ politeness if nothin’ else—was blazin’ away at the fleet, and smoke was curlin’ up like a chimbley on fire, an’ big balls was goin’ about like pais in a rattle, an’ small shot like hail was blowin’ horizontal, an’ men was bein’ shot an’ cut to pieces, an’ them as warn’t was cheerin’ as if there was any glory in wholesale murther—bah! I wouldn’t give a day at Donnybrook wid a shillelah for all the sieges of Sebastopool as ever I heard tell of. Well, suddintly, bang goes a round shot slap through the hull of the Agamemnon, below the water-line! Here was a pretty to do! The ordinary coorse in this case would have bin to haul out of action, go right away to Malta, an’ have the ship docked and repaired there. But what does they do? Why, they gets from under fire for a bit, and sends down my friend Tarry to look at the hole. He goes down, looks at it, then comes up an’ looks at the Commodore,—bowld as brass.

“‘I can repair it,’ says Tarry.

“‘Well, do,’ says the Commodore.

“So down he goes an’ does it, an’ very soon after that the Agamemnon went into action again, and blazed away at the walls o’ the owld place harder than ever.”

“That was a good case, an’ a true one,” said Joe Baldwin, with an approving nod.

“And these divers, Mr Edgar,” continued Joe, “sometimes go on their own hook, like we have done this time, with more or less luck. There was one chum of mine who took it into his head to try his chances at the wreck of the Royal Charter, long after all hope of further salvage had been abandoned, and in a short time he managed to recover between three and four hundred pounds sterling.”

“An immense amount of money, they do say, was recovered from the Royal Charter by divers,” observed Maxwell.

“That is true, and it happens,” said Edgar, sadly, “that I know a few interesting facts regarding that vessel. I know of some people whose hearts were broken by the loss of relatives in that wreck. There were many such—God comfort them! But that is not what I meant to speak of. The facts I refer to are connected with the treasure lost in the vessel. Just before leaving London I had occasion to call on the gentleman who had the management of the recovered gold, and he told me several interesting things. First of all, the whole of the gold that could be identified was handed at once over to its owners; but this matter of identification was not easy, for much of the gold was found quite loose in the form of sovereigns and nuggets and dust. The dust was ordered to be sent up with the ‘dirt’ that surrounded it, and a process of gold-washing was instituted, after the regular diggings fashion, with a bowl and water. Tons of ‘dirt’ were sent up and washed in this way, and a large quantity of gold saved. The agent showed me the bowl that was used on this occasion. He also showed me sovereigns that had been kept as curious specimens. Some of them were partly destroyed, as if they had been caught between iron-plates and cut in half; others were more or less defaced and bent, and a few had been squeezed almost into an unrecognisable shape. In one place, he told me, the divers saw a pile of sovereigns through a rent in an iron-plate. The rent was too small to admit a man’s arm, and the plates could not be dislodged. The divers, therefore, made a pair of iron tongs, with which they picked out the sovereigns, and thus saved a large sum of money. One very curious case of identification occurred. A bag of sovereigns was found with no name on it. A claimant appeared, but he could tell of no mark to prove that he was the rightful owner. Of course it could not be given up, and it appeared as if the unfortunate man (who was indeed the owner) must relinquish his claim, when in a happy moment his wife remembered that she had put a brass ‘token’ into the bag with the gold. The bag was searched, the token was found, and the gold was immediately handed to them.”

“Molly, my dear,” said Rooney Machowl at this point, “you make a note o’ that; an’ if ever you have to do with bags o’ goold, just putt a brass token or two into ’em.”

“Ah! Shut up, Rooney,” said Mrs Machowl, in a voice so sweet that the contrast between it and her language caused Edgar and Joe to laugh.

“Well, then,” continued Edgar, “in many other curious ways gold was identified and delivered to its owners: thus, in one case, an incomplete seal, bearing part of the legs of a griffin, was found on a bag of two thousand sovereigns, and the owner, showing the seal with which he had stamped it, established his claim. Of course in all cases where bars of gold were found with the owners’ names stamped on them, the property was at once handed over; but after all was done that could be done by means of the most painstaking inquiry, an immense amount of gold necessarily remained unclaimed.”

“And I s’pose if it wasn’t for us divers,” said Maxwell, “the whole consarn would have remained a dead loss to mankind.”

“True for ye,” responded Rooney; “it’s not often ye come out wid such a blaze of wisdom as that, David! It must be the puppy as has stirred ye up, boy, or, mayhap, the baccy!”

“Take care you don’t stir me up, lad, else it may be worse for you,” growled Maxwell.

“Och! I’m safe,” returned the Irishman, carelessly; “I’d putt Molly betwain us, an’ sure ye’d have to come over her dead body before ye’d git at me.—It wasn’t you, was it, David,” continued Rooney, with sudden earnestness, “that got knocked over by a blast at the works in Ringwall harbour two or three years ago?”

“No, it warn’t me,” responded Maxwell; “it was long Tom Skinclip. He was too tall for a diver—he was. They say he stood six futt four in his socks; moreover he was as thin as a shadow from a bad gas-lamp. He was workin’ one day down in the ’arbour, layin’ stones at the foundations of the noo breakwater, when they set off a blast about a hundred yards off from where he was workin’, an’ so powerful was the blast that it knocked him clean on his back. He got such a fright that he signalled violently to haul up, an’ they did haul ’im up, expectin’ to find one of his glasses broke, or his toobes bu’sted. There was nothin’ wotsomedever the matter with ’im, but he wouldn’t go down again that day. ’Owsever, he got over it, an’ after that went down to work at a wreck somewhere in the eastern seas—not far from Ceylon, I’m told. When there ’e got another fright that well-nigh finished him, an’ from that day he gave up divin’ an’ tuck to gardening, for which he was much better suited.”

“What happened to him?” asked Edgar.

“I’m not rightly sure,” answered Maxwell, refilling his pipe, “but I’ve bin told he had to go down one day in shallow water among sea-weed. It was a beautiful sort o’ submarine garden, so to speak, an’ long Tom Skinclip was so fond o’ flowers an’ gardens nat’rally, that he forgot hisself, an’ went wanderin’ about what he called the ‘submarine groves’ till they thought he must have gone mad. They could see him quite plain, you see, from the boat, an’ they watched him while he wandered about. The sea-weed was up’ard of six feet high, tufted on the top with a sort o’ thing you might a’most fancy was flowers. The colours, too, was bright. Among the branches o’ this submarine forest, or grove, small lobsters, an’ shrimps, an’ other sorts o’ shell-fish, were doin’ dooty as birds—hoppin’ from one branch to another, an’ creepin’ about in all directions.

“After a time long Tom Skinclip he sat down on a rock an’ wiped the perspiration off his brow—at least he tried to do it, which set the men in the boat all off in roars of laughter, for, d’ee see, Skinclip was an absent sort of a feller, an’ used to do strange things. No doubt when he sat down on the rock he felt warm, an’ bein’ a narvish sort o’ chap, I make no question but he was a-sweatin’ pretty hard, so, without thinkin’, he up with his arm, quite nat’ral like, an’ drawed it across where his brow would have bin if the helmet hadn’t been on. It didn’t seem to strike him as absurd, however, for he putt both hands on ’is knees, an’ sat lookin’ straight before ’im.

“He hadn’t sat long in this way when they see’d a huge fish—about two futt long—comin’ slowly through the grove behind ’im. It was one o’ them creeters o’ the deep as seems to have had its head born five or six sizes too big for its tail—with eyes an’ mouth to match. It had also two great horns above its eyes, an’ a cravat or frill o’ bristles round its neck. Its round eyes and half-open mouth gave it the appearance o’ bein’ always more or less in a state of astonishment. P’r’aps it was—at the fact of its havin’ bin born at all! Anyhow, it swum’d slowly along till it cotched sight o’ Skinclip, when it went at him, an’ looked at the back of his helmet in great astonishment, an’ appeared to smell it, but evidently it could make nothin’ of it. Then it looked all down his back with an equal want of appreciation. Arter that it came round to the front, and looked straight in at Skinclip’s bull’s-eye! They do say it was a sight to see the start he gave!

“He jump up as smart a’most as if he’d bin in the open air, an’ they obsarved, when he turned round, that a huge lobster of some unbeknown species was holdin’ on to his trousers with all its claws like a limpet! The fish—or ripslang, as one of the men called it, who said he knowed it well—turned out to be a pugnaceous creetur, for no sooner did it see Skinclip’s great eyes lookin’ at it in horror, than it set up its frill of spikes, threw for’ard the long horns, an’ went slap at the bull’s-eye fit to drive it in. Skinclip he putt down his head, an’ the ripslang made five or six charges at the helmet without much effect. Then it changed its tactics, turned on its side, wriggled under the helmet, an’ looked in at Skinclip with one of its glarin’ eyes close to the glass. At the same time the lobster gave him a tree-mendious tug behind. This was more than Skinclip could stand. They see’d him jump round, seize the life-line, an’ give it four deadly pulls, but his comrades paid no attention to it. The lobster gave him another tug, an’ the ripslang prepared for another charge. It seemed to have got some extra spikes set up in its wrath, for its whole body was bristlin’ more or less by this time.

“Again Skinclip tugged like a maniac at the line. The ripslang charged; the lobster tugged; the poor feller stepped back hastily, got his heels entangled in sea-weed, and went down head first into the grove!

“The men got alarmed by this time, so they pulled him up as fast as they could, an’ got him inboard in a few minutes; but they do