"I've lifted it," he said, "as near as
that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted
inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting
confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down
twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.
I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with
the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump
and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood
up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air
accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking
from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,
but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.
"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood
a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd
seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was
still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt
me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.
Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!
I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
of my helmet.
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