CHAPTER X
DAGO DIVERS
"I'm real glad to be able to call you 'Captain,' my lad," said Kettle,and Murray, in delight at his new promotion, wrung his old commander'shand again. "You've slaved hard enough as mate," Kettle went on, "thoughthat's only what a man's got to do at sea nowadays if he wantspromotion, and it'll probably amuse you to see Grain, who steps intoyour shoes, doing the work of four deck hands and an extra boatswain aswell as his own. Grain was inclined to stoutness--he'll soon be thinagain. As for you, you've sweated and slaved so much that your clotheshang on like you a slop-chest shirt on a stanchion just now. But you'llfill 'em out nicely by the time you get back to England again. Shouldn'twonder but what you turn out to be a regular fat man one of thesedays, my lad."
Murray stood back and looked humorously over Captain Kettle. The pair ofthem liked one another well, but the ties of discipline had kept themicily apart up to now. Murray's promotion put them on equal footing ofgrade now, and they were inclined to make the most of it for the shorttime they had together. "Running the _Parakeet_ doesn't seem to havemade you very plump, Skipper."
"Constitutional, I guess," said Kettle. "I don't believe the food'sgrown that'd make me carry flesh. I'm one of those men that was sentinto the world with a whole shipload of bad luck to work through beforeI came across any of the soft things."
"If you ask me," said Murray, cheerfully, "you haven't much to grumbleat now. Here am I kicking you out of the command of the _Parakeet_, tobe sure. And why? Because whilst you've been her old man you've made herpay about half what she originally cost per annum, and as out of thatthe firm's saved enough to build a new and bigger ship, they'renaturally going to give her to you to scare up more fat dividends.Lord," said Murray, hitting his knee, "the chaps on board here will becalling me the 'old man' behind my back now."
"You'll get used to hearing the title," said Kettle grimly, "before youmake your pile. You'll get married, I suppose, on the strength of thepromotion? I saw a girl's photo nailed up in your room."
The new captain nodded. "Got engaged when I passed for my master'sticket. Arranged to be hitched so soon as I found a ship."
Kettle sighed drearily. "I was that way, my lad. I was married, and akid had come before I was thirty. Not that I ever regretted it; byJames! no. But for long enough I was never able to provide for themissus in the way I'd like, and I can tell you it was terrible gall tome to know that our set at the chapel looked down on her because shecould only keep a poor home. Yes, my lad, you'll have a lot togo through."
"Well," said Murray, "I've got this promotion, and I'm not going toworry about dismals. I suppose you go straight home by mail fromAden here?"
"Hullo, haven't they told you?"
"My letter was only the dry, formal announcement that you were promotedto the new ship, and I was to take over the _Parakeet_."
"They don't waste their typewriter in the office. I suppose they thoughtI'd hand on my letter if I saw fit. Read through that," said Kettle, andhanded across his news. This is how it ran:--
BIRD, BIRD & CO., Ship and Insurance Brokers, Agents to the Bird Transport Company. Managers of the Bird Steam Company.
759, Euston Street, LIVERPOOL, 21st March, 1896.
_Swan_, 375 tons. Captain R. Evans. _Sparrow_, 461 tons. Captain James Evans. s.s. _Starling_, 880 tons. Captain Enoch Shaw. s.s. _Parakeet_, 2,100 tons. Captain Murray. s.s. Building, 3,500 tons. Captain O. Kettle. s.s. Building, 3,500 tons. Captain ... s.s. Building, 4,000 tons. Captain ... "The superb vessels of the Bird Line!"
_Dear Captain Kettle,--
Having noted from your cables and reports you are making a good thing for us out of tramping the "Parakeet," we have pleasure in transferring you to our new boat, which is now building on the Clyde. She will be 3,500 tons, and we may take out passenger certificate, she being constructed on that specification. Your pay will be L21 (twenty-one pound) per month, with 2-1/2 per cent. commission as before. But for the present, till this new boat is finished, we want you to give over command of the "Parakeet" to Murray, and take on a new job. Our Mr. Alexander Bird has recently bought the wreck of the s.s. "Grecian," and we are sending out a steamer with divers and full equipment to get the salvage. We wish you to go on board this vessel to watch over our interests. We give you full control, and have notified Captain Tazzuchi, at present in command, to this effect_.
_Yours truly, p.p. Bird, Bird and Co. (Isaac Bird.)_
_To Captain O. Kettle, s.s. "Parakeet," Bird Line, Aden._
"I see they have clapped me down on the bill heading for the _Parakeet_already," said Murray, "and you're shifted along in print for the newship. Birds are getting on. But I've big doubts about three new boatsall at one bite. One they might manage on a mortgage. But three? I don'tthink it. Old Ikey's too cautious."
"Messrs. Bird are your owners and mine," said Kettle significantly.
"Oh!" said the newly-made captain, "I'm not one of your old-fashionedsort that thinks an owner a little tin god."
"My view is," said Kettle, "that your owner pays you, and so is entitledto your respect so long as he is your owner. Besides that, whilst youare drawing pay, you're expected to carry out orders, whatever they maybe, without question. But I don't think we'll talk any more about this,my lad. You're one of the newer school, I know, and you've got such abig notion of your own rights that we're not likely to agree. Besides,you've got to check my accounts and see I've left it all for youship-shape, and I've to pull my bits of things together into aportmanteau. See you again before I go away, and we'll have a drop ofwhisky together to wish the _Parakeet's_ new 'old man' a pile of luck."
At the edge of the harbor, Aden baked under the sun, but Kettle was notthe man to filch his employer's time for unnecessary strolls ashore. Thesalvage steamer rolled at her anchor at the opposite side of the harbor,and Kettle and two portmanteaux were transhipped direct in one of the_Parakeet's_ boats.
He was received on board by an affable Italian, who introduced himselfas Captain Tazzuchi. The man spoke perfect English, and was hospitalitypersonified. The little salvage steamer was barely 300 tons burden, andher accommodation was limited, but Tazzuchi put the best room in theship at his guest's disposal, and said that anything that could act forhis comfort should be done forthwith.
"Y'know, Captain," said Tazzuchi, "this is what you call a 'Dago' ship,and we serve out country wine as a regular ration. But I thought perhapsyou'd like your own home ways best, and so I've ordered the ship'schandler ashore to send off a case of Scotch, and another of Chicagobeef. Oh yes, and I sent also for some London pickles. I know how youEnglish like your pickles."
In fact, all that a man could do in the way of outward attentionTazzuchi did, but somehow or other Captain Kettle got a suspicion of himfrom the very first moment of their meeting. Perhaps it was to someextent because the British mariner has always an instinctive and specialdistrust for the Latin nations; perhaps it was because the civility wasa little unexpected and over-effusive. Putting himself in the Italian'splace, Kettle certainly would not have gone out of his way to bepleasant to a foreigner who was sent practically to supersede him ina command.
But perhaps a second letter which he had received, giving him a moreintimate list of the duties required, had something to do with thishostile feeling. It was from the same hand which had written the firm'sformal letter, but it was couched in quite a different vein. Isaac Birdwas evidently scared for his very commercial existence, and he thrustout his arms to Kettle on paper as his only savior. It seemed thatAlexander Bird, the younger brother, had been running a little wildof late.
The wreck of the _Grecian_ had been put up for auction; Alexanderstrolled into the room by accident, and bought at an exorbitant figure.He came and announced his purchase to Isaac, declaring it as an instanceof his fine business instincts. Isaac set it down to whisky, andrecriminations foll
owed. Alexander in a huff said he would go out andoverlook the salvage operations in person. Isaac opined that the firmmight scrape to windward of bankruptcy by that means, and advisedAlexander to take remarkable pains about keeping sober. But forthwithAlexander, still in his cups, "and at a music hall, too, a place heknows 'Isaac's' religious connection holds in profound horror," gets tobrawling, and is next discovered in hospital with a broken thigh.
"_I have found Alexander's department of the business very tangled_,"wrote Isaac, "_when I began to go into his books the first day he waslaid up, and the thought of this new complication drove me near crazy.Salvage is out of our line; Alexander should never have touched it. Butthere it is; money paid, and I've had to borrow; and engaging thatItalian firm for the job was the best thing I could manage. What Englishfirms wanted was out of all reason. I don't wonder at Lloyds sellingwrecks for anything they will fetch. A pittance in cash is better thangetting into the hands of these sharks_" (sharks was heavilyunderscored). "_And what guarantee have I that the firm will pocket eventhat pittance? How do I know that I shall see even the money outpaidagain, let alone reasonable interest? None_."
There were several words erased here, and the writer went on with whatwas evidently considered a dramatic finish. "'_But stay,' I say tomyself, 'you have Kettle. He is down in the Red Sea now, doing well. Youhad all along intended to promote him. Do it now, and set him tooverlook this Italian salvage firm whilst the new boat is building. Heis the one to see that Isaac Bird's foot doth not fall, for Captain O.Kettle is a godly man also_.'"
The letter was shut off conventionally enough with the statement thatthe writer was Captain Kettle's truly, and ended in a post-scriptum tagto the effect that the envoy should still draw his two and a-half percent. on net results. The actual figures had evidently not been concededwithout a mental wrench, as the erasion beneath them showed, but therethey stood in definite ink, and Kettle was not inclined to cavil at theprocess which deduced them.
However, although in his recent prosperity Kettle had assumed a hatredfor risks, and bred a strong dislike for all those commercial adventureswhich lay beyond the ordinary rut and routine of trade, he took up hisduties on the salvage steamer with a stout heart and cheerful estimatefor the future. Ahead of him he had pleasant dreams of the big boat thatwas "building," and the increased monthly pay in store; and for thepresent, well, here was an owner's command, and of course that settledhim firmly in the berth. He had been too long an obedient slave toshipowners of every grade to have the least fancy for disputing theimperial will of Bird, Bird and Co.
Murray tooted his cheerful farewells on the _Parakeet's_ siren as thelittle Italian salvage boat steamed out of the baking airs of Adenharbor, and ensigns were dipped with due formality. Tazzuchi was allhospitality. He invited Kettle to damage his palate with a black Italian"Virginia" cigar with a straw up the middle; he uncorked a bottle of theScotch whisky with his own hand, splashed away the first wineglassful toget rid of the fusel oil, and put it ready for reference when his guestshould feel athirst; and he produced a couple of American piratededitions of English novels to give even intellect its dainty feast.
Kettle accepted it all with a dry civility. He had every expectation ofupsetting this man's plans of robbery later on, and very possibly ofcoming into personal contact with him. But the ties of bread and saltdid not disturb him. Though it was Tazzuchi who presented the Virginiasand the novels, he took it for granted that Messrs. Bird, Bird and Co.had paid for them, and he was not averse to accepting a little luxuryfrom the firm. The economical Isaac had cut down the commissariat on the_Parakeet_ till a man had to be half-starved before he could stomacha meal.
The salvage steamer had a South of Europe leisureliness in hermovements. Her utmost pace was nine knots, but, as eight was moreeconomical for coal consumption, it was at that speed she moved. Thewreck of the _Grecian_ was out of the usual steam lane. She had, itappeared, got off her course in a fog, had run foul of a half-ebb reefwhich holed her in two compartments, and then been steered for the shorein the wild attempt to beach her before she sank. She had ceasedfloating, however, with some suddenness, and when the critical momentcame not all of her people managed to scrape off with their lives in theboats. Those that stayed behind were incontinently drowned; those thatgot away found themselves in a gale (to which the fog gave place), andhad so much trouble to keep afloat that they had no time left to makeaccurate determination of where their vessel sank; and when they werepicked up could only give her whereabouts vaguely. However, they statedthat the _Grecian's_ mast-trucks remained above the water surface, andby these she could be found; and this fact was brought out strongly bythe auctioneer who sold the wreck, and had due influence on theenterprising Alexander. "Masts!" said Alexander, who daily saw thembristling from a dock, "don't tell me you can miss masts anywhere."
But, as it chanced, it was only by a fluke that the salvage steamerstumbled across the wreck at all. She wandered for several days among anintensely dangerous archipelago, and many times over had narrow escapesfrom piling up her bones on one or other of those reefs with which theRed Sea in that quarter abounds. Tazzuchi navigated her in an ecstasy ofnervousness, and Kettle (who regarded himself as a passenger for thetime being) kept a private store of food and water-bottles handy, andsaw that one of the quarter-boats was ready for hurried lowering. Butnowhere did they see those mast-trucks. They did not sight so much as ascrap of floating wreckage.
There seemed, however, a good many dhow coasters dodging about in andamong the reefs, and from these Kettle presently drew a deduction.
"Look here," he said to Tazzuchi one morning, "what price those gentryashore having found the wreck already? I guess they aren't out heretaking week-end trippers for sixpenny yachting cruises."
"No," said Tazzuchi, "and they aren't fishing; you can see that."
"Well, I give you the tip for what it's worth," said Kettle; and thatafternoon the steamer was run up alongside a dhow, which trieddesperately to escape. Her captain was dragged on board, and at thatjuncture Captain Kettle took upon himself to go below. He knew whatwould probably take place, and, though he disapproved of such methodsstrongly, he felt he could not interfere. He was in Bird, Bird and Co.'semploy, and what was being done would forward the firm's interest.
But presently came a noise of bellowing from the deck above, and thenthat was followed by shrill screams as the upper gamut of agony wasreached. Kettle was prepared for rough handling, but at informationgained by absolute torture he drew the line. It was clear that thesecruel beggars of Italians were going too far.
"By James!" he muttered to himself, "owners or no owners, I can't standthis," and started hurriedly to go back to the deck. But before hereached the head of the companion-way the cries of pain ceased, and sohe stood where he was on the stair, and waited. The engines rumbled, andthe steamer once more gathered way. A clamor of barbaric voices reachedhim, which gradually died into quietude. It was clear they were leavingthe dhow behind.
Captain Kettle drew a long breath. They would stick at little, theseDagos, in getting the salvage of the _Grecian_, and it seemedpreposterous to suppose that once they gripped the specie in their ownringers they would ever give it up for the paltry pay which had beenoffered by Bird, Bird and Co. Their own poverty was aching. He saw itwhenever he looked about the patched little steamer. He felt it wheneverhe sat down to one of their painfully frugal meals.
Still, though no man knew more bitterly than Kettle himself from pastexperience what poverty meant, and how it cut, the poverty of theseItalians was no concern of his just then. They were paid servants of theowners exactly as he was, and it was his duty to see that they earnedtheir hire. He took it that he was one against the whole ship's company,but the odds did not daunt him. On the contrary, something of his oldfighting spirit, which had been of late hustled into the background bysnug commercial prosperity, came back to him. And besides, he had alwaysat his call that exquisite pride of race which has so many times givenvictory to the Anglo-Saxon o
ver the Latin, when all reasonable balancesshould have made it go the other way.
By a sort of instinct he buttoned up his trim white drill coat, andstepped out on deck. There would be no scuffle yet awhile. With thespecie that would make the temptation still snugly stored on thesea-floor, the dirty, untidy Italians were still all affability. Indeed,as soon as he appeared, Tazzuchi himself stepped down off the upperbridge to give him the news.
"How do you think those crafty imps have managed it?" he cried, with agesture. "Why they dived down and cut off her masts below water level.The funnel was out of sight already. They just thought they were goingto have the skimming of that wreck themselves. No wonder we couldn'tpick her up."
"Cute beggars," said Kettle.
"I've bagged a pilot. If he takes us there straight, he gets backsheesh.If he doesn't, he eats more stick. I think," said Captain Tazzuchi, witha wide smile, "that he'll take us there the quickest road."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Kettle. "But don't be surprised if his friendscome round and make things ugly. When those Red Sea niggers get theirfingers in a wreck, they think's it's their wreck."
"Let them come. We were ready for this sort of entertainment when wesailed, and there are plenty of rifles and cartridges in the cabin. Ifthere is any trouble, we shall shoot; and if we begin that game, weshall just imagine they are Abyssinians, and shoot to kill. The Italianshave a big bill to pay with those jokers, anyway." He tapped Kettle onthe shoulder. "And look at those two brass signal guns, Captain. If webreak up some firebars for shot, they'll smash the side of any dhow inthe Red Sea."
Under the black captive's guidance, the salvage steamer soon put a termto her search. For two more hours she threaded her way among surf whichbroke over unseen reefs, and swung round the capes of a rockyarchipelago, and then the pilot gave his word and the engines werestopped and a rusty cable roared out till an anchor got its hold of theground. A boat was lowered with air-pump already stepped amidships, andthe boat's crew with eager hands assisted the diver to make his toilet.
"You chaps seem keen enough," said Kettle, as he watched the trail ofair bubbles which showed the man's progress on the sea floor below.
"They have each got a stake in the venture."
"I bet they have," was Kettle's grim comment to himself.
The kidnapped skipper of the dhow, it seemed, had done his pilotage witha fine accuracy. The salvage steamer had been anchored in a goodposition, and between them two divers in two boats found the _Grecian's_wreck in half an hour. Indeed, they had made their first descentpractically within hand-touch of her, but the water was full of a milkyclay and very opaque, and sight below the surface was consequentlylimited.
They came up to the air for a quarter of an hour's spell and made theirannouncement, and then the copper helmets were clapped into place again,and once more like a pair of uncouth sea monsters they slowly andclumsily faded away into the depths. A gabble of excited Italian keptpace to the turning of the air-pumps, and of that language Kettle knewbarely a score of words. Practically these people might have weaved anykind of plot noisily and under his very nose without his being any thewiser, and this possibility did little to quell his suspicions.
But still Tazzuchi was all outward frankness. "It's as well we broughtout this little steamboat just to skim the wreck and survey her," hesaid. "If they'd waited to fit out a big salvage expedition, to raiseher straight off, I reckon there wouldn't have been much left but ironplates and coal bunkers. These Red Sea niggers are pretty useful atlooting, once they start. The beggars can dive pretty nearly as well andas long in their naked skins as their betters can in a properdiving suit."
Each time the divers came up from the opaque white water they broughtmore reports. Binnacles, whistle, wheels, and all movable deck fittingswere gone already. The chart-house had been looted down to the bareboards. Hatches were off, both forward and aft, and already the cargohad begun to diminish. The black men of the district had been makinggood use of their time; and as the probabilities were that they wouldreturn in force to glean from this store which they considered legallytheirs, it was advisable to collect as much as possible into the salvagesteamer before any disturbances began.
News came from the cool mysterious water to the baking region of airabove, almost at the second hour of the search, that the _Grecian_ couldnever be refloated. In addition to the holes already made in two of hercompartments, she had settled on a sharp jag of rock, which had piercedher in a third place aft. But at the same time this one piece of rockwas the only solid spot in the neighborhood. All the rest of the seafloor was paved with pulpy white clay, and in this the unfortunate wreckhad settled till already it was flush with her lower decks. There wereevidences, too, that the ooze was creeping higher every day, so that allthat remained was to strip her as quickly as might be before she wasswallowed up for always.
Tazzuchi asked Captain Kettle for his opinion that night in thechart-house. "I'm to be guided by you, of course," he said, "but my ideais that we should go for the specie first thing, and let everythingslide till that's snugly on board here. Birds gave L5,400 for the wreck,and there's L8,000 in cash down there in a room they built specially forit over the shaft-tunnel. If we can grab that, it will pay our expensesand commission and all the other actual outlay, and Birds will be out ofthe wood. Afterward, if we can weigh any more of the cargo, well, thatwill be all clear profit."
"Yes," thought Kettle, "you want those gold boxes in your hands, youblessed Dago, and then you'll begin to play your monkey tricks. I wonderif you think you're going to jam a knife into me by way of making thingssnug and safe?" But aloud he expressed agreement to CaptainTazzuchi's plan.
He felt that this was diplomacy, and though the diplomatic art was newand strange to him, he told himself that it was the correct weapon touse under the circumstances. He had risen out of his old grade ofhole-and-corner shipmaster, where it had been his province to carrythings through by rough blows and violent words. He was a Captain in aregular line--the Bird line--now, and (with a trifle of a sigh) heremembered that wild fights and scrimmages were beneath the dignity ofhis position.
Accordingly, as soon as dawn gave a waking light, the boats were put outagain, and the divers were given orders to let the further survey of thevessel rest, and put all their efforts into getting the specie boxes onto the end of the salvage steamer's winch chain. They were quicklyhelmed and sent below, and presently an increased cloudiness in thewater told him that they were actively at work. A lot of dhows wereshowing here and there amongst the reefs, obviously watching them, andTazzuchi was beginning to get nervous.
"We're in for trouble, I'm afraid," he said to Kettle. "That rock onwhich she's settled astern has made a hole in her you could drive a cartthrough. I suppose it was a tight-fitting hole at first, but as shesettled more and moved about, it's got enlarged same as the hole in atin of beef does when you begin to waggle it with the can-opener."
"Well?"
"Didn't you hear the report they've just sung off from the boats? Oh, Iforgot, you don't understand Italian. Well, the news is that the rock'sacted as a can-opener to such fine effect that it's split a hole in thebottom of the strong room, and those gold boxes have toppled through."
"And buried themselves in the slime?"
"That's it. And Lord knows how many feet they've sunk. It's dreadfulstuff to dig amongst--slides in on you as soon as you start to dig, andlevels up. They'll have to brattice as they work. It'll be a big job."
All that day Kettle watched the sea with an anxious eye. In the twoboats men ground at the air-pumps under the aching sunlight. From belowthe mud came up in white billows, which danced, and swirled, and eddiedas the air bubbles from the divers' exhaust valves stirred it. And outbeyond, in and among the reefs, and along the distant shore, which swungand shimmered in the heat haze, hungry dhows prowled like carrion birdstemporarily driven away from a prey.
Tazzuchi and the chief engineer busied themselves in binding togetherfragments of fire-bars with iron wire.
The Italian shipmaster had agreat notion of the damage his signal-guns could do against a dhow, ifthey were provided with orthodox solid shot. As a point of fact theynever came into action. As soon as the second night came down, and thedarkness became fairly fixed in hue, there began to crackle out of thedistance a desultory rifle fire from every quarter of the compass. Itwas not very heavy--at the outside there were not a score of weaponsfiring, and it could not be called accurate since not one bullet intwenty so much as hit the steamer; but it was annoying for all that, andas the marksmen and their vessels were completely swallowed up by theblackness of the night, it was impossible to repay their complimentsin kind.
Morning showed the damage of one port window smashed, two panes gonefrom the engine-room skylight, and the air-pump in one of the boatsalongside with a plunger neatly cut into two pieces. But there was aspare air-pump in store, and after dawn came, work went on as usual. Thedhows came no nearer, neither did they go much further away. Theypottered about just beyond rifle shot, and their numbers were slightlyincreased. Tazzuchi, full of enthusiasm for his artillery, tried acarefully aimed shot at one of the largest. But the explosion was quiteoutdone in noise by the cackle of laughter which followed it. So slowwas the flight of the missile that the eye could trace it. So short wasits journey, and so curved its trajectory, that it came very near tohitting one of the boats of the divers, and the men working there criedout in derision that they would catch cold by being wetted by the spray.
"Well," thought Kettle, "these are pretty cool hands for Dagos, anyway.I'm going to have a fine tough time of it when my part of thescuffle comes."
That night he had a still further taste of their quality. So soon asdarkness fell, the dhows closed in again and recommenced their sniping.They kept under weigh, and so it did little enough good to aim back atthe flashes. But Tazzuchi, with half a dozen keen spirits, got down intoone of the boats with their rifles and knives, and a drum of paraffin,and pulled away silently into the blackness.
There was silence for quite half an hour, and the suspense on theanchored steamer was vivid enough to have shaken trained men. Yet theseItalian artificers and merchant seamen seemed to take it as coolly asthough such sorties were an everyday occurrence. But at the end of thattime there was a splutter of shots, a few faint squeals, and then abonfire lighted up away in the darkness.
The blaze grew rapidly, and showed in its heart the outline of a dhowwith human figures on it. With promptness every man on the steameremptied his rifle at the mark, and continued the fusillade till the dhowwas deserted. They had all done their spell of military service, andthey chose to decide that these snipers were Abyssinians, and did theirbest toward squaring the national accounts.
Tazzuchi and his friends returned in the boat, safe and jubilant, andfor the rest of that night the little salvage steamer was left inquietude. With the next daybreak the divers and their attendants oncemore applied themselves to labor. Kettle, as he watched, was amazed tosee the energy they put into it. Certainly they seemed keen enough toget the specie weighed, and on board. Whatever piratical plans they hadgot made up were evidently for afterward.
But when day after day passed, and still none of the treasure wasbrought to the surface, he began to modify this original opinion.Tazzuchi--translating the divers' reports--said that the cause of thedelay was the softness of the sea-floor. The heavy chests had sunk deepinto the ooze, and directly a spadeful of the horrible slime was dugaway, more slid in to fill the gap. Of course this might be true; butthere was only Tazzuchi's word for it. The sea was too consistentlyopaque to give one a chance of seeing down from above the surface.
Now as suspicion had got so deep a hold on Captain Kettle's mind, hebegan to cudgel his brain for some new method by which the Italianscould serve their purpose. He put himself supposititiously in Tazzuchi'splace, and made piratical theories by the score. Most of them he had todismiss after examination as impracticable, others he eliminated bynatural selection; and finally one stood out as practicable beyondall the rest.
For one thing it did not want many participants; only the actual diversand Tazzuchi himself. For another, it would not brand the whole gang ofthem as criminals and pirates, but (properly managed) would make themrich without any advertised stigma or stain. In simple words, the methodwas this: the gold boxes must be removed from their original site, andhidden elsewhere under the water close at hand. The friendly slime wouldbury them snugly out of sight. The old report of "un-get-at-able" wouldbe adhered to, and finally the steamer would give up further salvageoperations as hopeless (after fishing up some useless cargo out of theholds as a conscience salve) and steam away to port. There Tazzuchi andhis friends would either desert or get themselves dismissed, charter asmall vessel of their own, and go back for the plunder; and with L8,000in clear hard cash to divide, live prosperously (from an Italianstandpoint) ever afterward.
Kettle felt an unimaginative man's complacency in ferreting out such adramatic scheme, and began to think next upon the somewhat importantdetail of how to get proofs before he commenced to frustrate it. Chanceseemed to make Tazzuchi play into his hand. The air-pump which had beendamaged by the rifle bullet had been mended by the steamer's engineers,and as there were two or three spare diving dresses on the ship, CaptainTazzuchi expressed his intention of making a descent in person toinspect progress.
"I didn't do it before, because I didn't want to make the men breaktime, but I can go down now without interrupting their work. Will youcome off in the boat with me, Captain, and hand my lifeline?"
"I'll borrow one of those spare dresses and share the pump with you,"said Kettle.
Tazzuchi was visibly startled. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the pump will give air for two, and I'm coming down withyou."
"But you know nothing about diving, and you might have an accident, andI should be responsible."
"Oh, I'll risk that! You must nursery-maid me a bit."
Tazzuchi lowered his voice. "To tell the truth, I'm going to pay asurprise visit. I want to make sure those chaps below are doing thesquare thing. If they aren't, and I catch them, there'll be a row, andthey'll use their knives."
"H'm!" said Kettle, "I've got no use for your local weapon as a generalthing. I find a gun handiest. But at a pinch like this I'll borrow aknife of you, and if it comes to any one cutting my air-tube you'll findI can use it pretty mischievously."
"I wish you wouldn't insist upon this," said Tazzuchi persuasively.
"I'm going to, anyway."
"I'm going down merely because it's my duty."
"That's the very same reason that's taking me, Captain. I must ask younot to make any more objections. I'm a man that never changes his mind,once it's made up."
Whereupon Tazzuchi shrugged his shoulders, and gave way.
"Now," thought Kettle to himself, "that man's made up his mind to killme if he gets the glimmer of a chance, and, as I'm not going to getwiped out this journey, he'll do with a lot of watching."
It has been the present writer's business at one time and another topoint out that Captain Owen Kettle is a man of iron nerve; but I cannotcall to mind any instance where his indomitable courage was moreseverely tried than in this voluntary descent in the diving dress. Theworld beneath the waters was strange and dangerous to him; his companionwas a man against whom he held the blackest suspicion; the men at thepump (whose language he did not understand) might any moment cut off hissupply, and leave him to drown like a puppy under a bucket. Thecircumstances combined were enough to daunt a Bayard.
But Kettle felt that the men in the boat, who helped to adjust hisstiff rubber dress, were regarding him with more than ordinarycuriosity, and, for his own pride's sake, he preserved an unruffledface. He even tried a rude jest in their own tongue before they madefast the helmet on his head, and the cackle of their laughter was thelast sound he heard before the metal dome closed the audible worldaway from him.
They hung the weights over his chest and back, and Tazzuchi signed tohim to
descend. Kettle hitched round the sheath-knife to the front ofhis belt, and signed with politeness, "After you."
Tazzuchi did not argue the matter. He lifted his clumsy lead-soled feetover the side of the boat, got on the ladder, and climbed down out ofsight. Kettle followed. The chill of the water crept up and closed overhis head; the steady throb-throb of the air-pump beat against his skull;and a little shiver took him in one small spot between the shoulderblades, because he knew that it was there that an Italian, if he canmanage it, always plants a knife in his enemy.
He reached the end of the ladder and slid down a rope. He felt curiouslycorky and insecure, but still when he reached the bottom he sank up tohis knees in impalpable mud. He could foggily see Tazzuchi a few pacesaway waiting for him, and he went up to him at once. If the men in theboat, acting on orders, cut his air-tube, he wanted to be in a positionto cut Captain Tazzuchi's also with promptness.
However, everything went peacefully just then. The Italian set off downa track in the slime, and Kettle waded laboriously after him. It wasterrible work making a passage through that white glutinous ooze, butthey came to the wreck directly, and, working round her rusty flank,stood beside a great shallow pit, where two weird-looking graysea-monsters showed in dim outline through the dense fog of the water.
Sound does not carry down there in that quiet world, and the twonew-comers stood for long enough before the two workers observed them.But one chanced to look up and see them watching and jogged the otherwith his spade, and then both frantically beckoned the visitors to comedown into the pit. Tazzuchi led, and Kettle followed, wallowing down theslopes of slime, and there at the bottom, in the dim, milky light, oneof the professional divers slipped a shovel into his hand and thrust itdownward, till it jarred against something solid underfoot.
It was clear they had come upon the gold boxes, and they wished toimpress upon the visitors, in underwater dumb show, that the find hadonly been made that very minute. It was a strange enough performance.Half-seen hands snapped red fingers in triumph. Ponderously booted feetdid a dance of ecstasy in three feet of gluey mud. And meanwhile,Kettle, with a hand on the haft of his knife, edged away from thisuncanny demonstration, lest some one should slit his air-tube before hecould prevent it.
He had seen what he wanted; he had no reason to wait longer; andbesides, being a novice at diving, his lungs were half burst already inthe effort to get breath, and his head was singing like a tea-urn. Thegold boxes were there, and if they were not brought to the surface, andcarried honestly to Suez, the matter would have to be fought out abovein God's open air, and not in that horrible choking quagmire of slimeand cruel water. And so, still guarding himself cannily, he got backagain to the boat, and almost had it in him to shake hands with the menwho eased him of that intolerable helmet.
Now far be it from me to raise even a suspicion that Captain Owen Kettleresented the fact that he had been robbed of a scuffle when the littlesalvage steamer actually did bring up in Suez harbor with the speciehonestly locked in one of her staterooms. But that he was violentlyangry he admits himself without qualification. He says he kicked himselffor being such a bad judge of men.
The _Parakeet_ was in when they arrived, rebunkering for the run home,and Murray came off as fast as a crew could drive his boat toinquire the news.
He saw Tazzuchi on the deck and accosted him with a vigorous handshake,and a "Hullo, Fizz-hookey, old man, how goes it? Who'd have thought ofseeing you here? Howdy, Captain Kettle. Had good fishing?"
"Do you know Captain Tazzuchi?"
"Somewhat. Why, we were both boys on the _Conway_ together."
"You're making some mistake. Captain Tazzuchi is an Italian."
"Oh, am I?" said Tazzuchi. "Not much of the Dago about me except thename."
"Well, you never told me that before."
"You never asked me, that I know of. I speak about enough of the lingoto carry on duty with, and I serve on an Italian ship because I couldn'tget a skipper's billet on anything else. But I'm as English as eitherof you, and as English as Birds--or more English than Birds, seeing thatthey come from somewhere near Jerusalem. Great Scot, Captain Kettle,can't you tell a Dago yet for sure? Where have you been all your days?"
Murray laughed. "Well, come across and discuss it in the _Parakeet_.I've got a case of champagne on board to wet my new ticket."
"Stay half a minute," said Tazzuchi, "we'll just get those boxes of golddown into your boat, Murray, and ferry them across. I sha'n't be sorryto have them out of my responsibility. They're too big a temptation toleave handy for the crew there is on board here."
"Phew!" said Kettle, "it's hot here in Suez. Great James! to think ofthe way I've been sweating about this blame' ship without a scrap ofneed of it. Here, hurry up with the lucre-boxes. I want to get across tothe old _Parakeet_ and wash the taste of a lot of things out ofmy mouth."