Part 26

I had good eyes and I spotted the objects right off. There were three curved ribs of a ship outlined against the white of the breaking rollers beyond. The telescope gave the view relief and perspective, and I saw that the ribs were well outshore. Many yards of tossing water, so I judged, were between them and land.

“Well, what do you think?” he inquired, when I passed the glass back.

“I’ll tell you after I’ve been down, sir. A diver can’t afford to waste guesswork on the top side of water.”

The girl shook her head when her father offered her the telescope, and Keedy came in and took his look.

“Away in there, is it? Well, what are we waiting for out here?”

Captain Holstrom looked his partner up and down.

This sudden exhibition of a lack of a practical knowledge took his breath away for a moment.

“We’re waiting out here because we have got to stay here, Marcena. This is as far as it’s safe to go.”

“We might as well sit on the Cliff House piazza and boss the job as be out here,” grumbled the gambler.

“I don’t know what sort of an idea you had about getting this treasure,” retorted the captain. “But if you had paid attention to Ike when, he was telling about the lay of the land you ought to have realized that we wasn’t going to tie up to that wreck and have Sidney hook bags of gold on to a fish-line for you to pull up.”

“I’m down here to have a general oversight in this business,” said Keedy, “and I propose to be near enough to the job to oversee it.”

Captain Holstrom looked a bit disgusted. “We might rig a bos’n’s chair for you on one of them ribs, and cut a hole in the water for you to look down through. But see here, Marcena, don’t get foolish about this thing. All you’ve been thinking about, so I judge, is of them boxes of gold, and you haven’t stopped to figure on the way of getting ’em. I have figured. I’ve talked a lot with old Ike when you wasn’t listening, but was dreaming about them ingots. Now you listen to me. Let’s start in without a row and a general misunderstanding.” He began to dot off his points with a stubby forefinger.

“We can’t anchor the _Zizania_ any nearer. There isn’t holding-ground on that sand, and we’ve got to have plenty of water under this steamer in case of a blow. See those lighters forward? I bought ’em after I got a general understanding of the lay of the land here from Ike.”

“You bought a lot of things without consulting me,” said Keedy, showing his grouch. “What _am_ I in this thing--a passenger or a partner? Seeing that my money is in it, I propose to have my brains in, too.”

The man acted and talked in a way to indicate that he was starting out hunting for trouble. It began to look to me as if there were worse shoals ahead for our partnership than the shoals of San Apusa Bar. Mr. Jones had given me that as the name of the place where the wreck lay.

Capt. Rask Holstrom did not have the steadiest temper in the world. His eyes narrowed.

“Every man for his own line, Keedy. I’m not presuming to tell you how to deal from the box, nor how to size the buried card in stud poker. Nor I don’t need any advice from you when it comes to handling a job of work in tidewater. I’ve waited till I got here to tell you my plans. When I can talk and you can see the layout at the same time, I’ll not be wasting so much breath; even those faro-game brains of yours can take in what I’m getting at. Now, hold right on! This is going to be a square deal, and you can sit close to the jack-pot. Those four lighters are going overboard, and we’ll moor them in a chain between here and the shore. We can splice the cables so as to allow a hundred fathoms between each one. That will make each lighter a sort of a bridle anchor for the others, and we ought to get the inshore lighter mighty nigh the wreck. You can stay on that lighter and have your meals brought if you hanker to.”

He snapped out that last remark while he was backing down the ladder from the bridge to the main deck. The sneer that went with it did not improve the state of Keedy’s feelings.

“I’ll show this aggregation whether I can boss a job or not,” he growled.

I decided right then that if Keedy tried to boss me from that inshore lighter the partnership of Holstrom, Keedy & Sidney would get a fracture in the second joint much wider than the one which was already widening there. I looked after him when he strolled away, and I reckon if he had turned around and given me one of those nasty looks of his just then I would have run after him and hoisted him a good one under the coat-tail--gladly taking the consequences. I had never hated Anson C. Doughty any worse. Keedy had grafted himself on to the project with stolen money--and now he was insulting the rest of us by placing us in the rogue class with himself and in need of watching.

I suppose I looked very blue and ugly and disgusted as I stood there at the rail, scowling first at Keedy and then at the streaming white of the surf which played beyond the ribs of the wreck.

The girl spoke to me. She leaned from the window of the wheel-house, and there was a note in her voice I had never heard before. All her brusqueness was gone. She was sort of confidential and wistful.

“You don’t think much of this scheme, do you, Mr. Sidney?”

I was in the mood to agree with her. “There must be an almighty good reason why those other fellows did not recover the treasure, Miss Holstrom, providing old Ike is right in what he says and that they didn’t get it. I can tell better after I have been down.”

“I have never seen a diver at work. It is very dangerous, isn’t it?”

“That depends on the job. I have been as deep as one hundred and seventy feet, Miss Holstrom, and I felt perfectly safe, though the pressure made my nose bleed. Another time I was down in only four fathoms in the wash of a lee shore, and they couldn’t keep my lines and my air-hose dear, and they pulled me up near dead. That’s a lee shore yonder, and I’m afraid I’m going to find some very good reasons why the other divers didn’t succeed. Sometimes I am tempted to believe that they did get the gold and that old Ike’s talk is simply a dream.”

“I think the whole affair is a nightmare--I mean this trip,” she declared. “I don’t believe the good Lord is going to allow a man like Marcena Keedy to succeed in any decent enterprise.”

I rubbed my ear and looked at her for a few minutes. I had been turning over a thought about this expedition in my mind for some days. I did not know whether to say anything to her about it or not. It would be giving Captain Holstrom a pretty hard dig. But I blurted it, for she knew I had something on my mind and bluntly demanded to know what I was thinking about.

“Perhaps this is the kind of a scheme where the devil will help his own, Miss Holstrom--and therefore Keedy belongs in the thick of it as chief manager. He’ll win on that basis. I don’t know much about admiralty law or maritime justice. But it may be that this treasure has not been officially abandoned. Perhaps taking it is stealing it. I know that the _Zizania_ got away from port with papers as a trawl fisher. I know I have no business talking like this about your father’s affair. But if it’s to be real stealing, perhaps we’ll succeed with Keedy in the game,” I said--and it was a pretty clumsy joke. It fell flat.

“I hope my father will wake up,” she said, curtly, looking down on him where he was giving off orders about clearing the big derrick. “Sometimes I almost believe in evil spirits and in control of a man’s mind by another man--in a wicked way, I mean. But I thank God there’s one of the Holstrom family who can’t be hypnotized by Marcena Keedy. That is why I have come on this voyage--my father needs a guardian.”

She came down the steps from the wheel-house, and went into her state-room. I walked aft, for the _Zizania_ had swung with the surges, and was tailing toward shore, and I wanted to look at the place where my work had been cut out for me.

Keedy met me amidship. He came out from behind a lashed life-boat, and it struck me at once that he had been in ambush, spying on me. That was before he had opened his mouth. He did not leave me in any doubt when he began to talk.

“Let’s get to an understanding about Miss Holstrom, Sidney,” he rasped, leveling his finger at me. “You let her alone. No more buzzing her behind my back or her father’s.”

“Keedy, you have started running after trouble to-day. In my case, you’ll catch up with it mighty soon.”

“Then let’s make believe I have caught up. I’m going to marry that young lady. And no cheap Yankee masher is going to stand around and make sheep’s eyes at her. That’s business and you keep your hands down. You slap me again, Sidney, and I’ll drop you in your tracks--even if the gold stays there till we can get another diver.” He had his hand on his hip, and his eyes were fairly green.

I started to tell him what I thought of him and his chances with that girl, proposing to throw in a few remarks about what I should do if I wanted to. But I shut my mouth suddenly. I had no right to stand out there and insult a girl by quarreling about her with a fellow of that stripe.

Vastly different were the circumstances and the relations of the persons concerned--but I felt the same rankling of resentment which hurt my pride and my feelings when Jeff Dawlin growled his warning in my ear. I hated to leave any false impressions with Keedy. I did not propose to have him think I envied him anything he possessed or thought he possessed. Pride and the spirit of brag--that was it--prompted my answer.

“Look here,” I shot out at him, “I have a girl East who is worth more than all the gold you expect to find in that wreck over there. What do you think I’m out in this God-forsaken country for? What do you think I’m gambling along with you for? It’s so I can grab off enough money to make a showing when I carry it back home and pour it into her lap! Don’t you worry, Keedy. I don’t want any of your girls. There’s one who is waiting for me back East!” How a man will lie when he gets to talking about girls! I snapped my fingers under Keedy’s nose and walked on aft. I felt considerably relieved because I figured I had taken some of the conceit out of him. I had a lot taken out of myself when I returned.

Miss Kama Holstrom met me. She gave me one of those up-and-down glances which seem to sting like the flick of a long lash.

“I have no objection to your discussing your love affairs with Mr. Keedy, my dear sir--though I question your good taste. But I must ask you not to discuss me with him.”

“I assure you I did not!”

“I stepped into my state-room only to get my cap. I was walking on the other side of the life-boat when you were talking.”

“But I--”

“I’m sure you understand my request, sir.” She walked on.

A fine partnership--that of Holstrom, Keedy, and Sidney, treasure-seekers! And there was a silent partner whose silence just then, along with her disgust, sent a crimson flame into my cheeks.

XXX--THE LOCKS OF THE SAND

RIGHT away I found that Captain Holstrom knew how to “team” a crew. He started that checkerboard outfit of his to humping in good earnest after he and I had planned out the details of setting the stage for the work ahead of us.

We needed to reach as long an arm as possible toward the wreck.

Inside of four days after we planted our mud-hooks on San Apusa Bar, we had our string of lighters in place.

First we anchored them and then we linked them with one another by cables because the sandy bottom inshore from the steamer afforded poor holding-ground for the anchors. Having a number of lighters hitched together in this manner, the chain made a sort of spring cable for the lighter nearest the wreck where the scuffling surges were piling high over the shoals. The scow nearest the shore thrashed about in rather lively style, but I figured that I could do my work from it in pretty fair fashion. At any rate, by our system of cables, we planted the lighter less than three hundred feet from the upstanding ribs of the Golden Gate. It was about the best we could do, considering our limited equipment.

On the fifth day all was ready for me to go down for the first time.

Of course I had been allowed to pick my own helpers, and I had been giving them lessons for some time. I chose Mate Number-two Jones to tend hose and lines, and Chief-Engineer Shank was to manage the air-pump.

I had found them to be steady and reliable men. I owned a Heinke diving-dress which had cost me six hundred dollars, and with the right men “up-stairs” I was not worrying about my ability to get down and stay down--even if I had been off my job for a while. As to what I would be able to accomplish when I got down on ocean’s floor I was not quite so sure.

While I had been waiting for the lighters to be moored I had pumped Ingot Ike daily.

He did seem to know what he was talking about--and I had to admit that. The matter of the treasure of the _Golden Gate_ had crowded everything else out of his mind, and left his memory mighty dear. He drew a plan of her with a stubby pencil, and went into minute details of description. He said the ribs which showed were forward of the room where the treasure had been stored. The fire had been aft and amidship, and when she had struck the sand she had buried her nose, and these ribs were planted so solidly that the surf had not been able to beat them down. As a quartermaster who had known his ship, he was able to tell me how many paces aft from the standing ribs should be the spot where the treasure lay.

They made ready the best life-boat on the _Zizania_ for me and my equipment, a big yawl with sponsons. Captain Holstrom did not propose to take any chances with that outfit during the ferrying process. He went as coxswain, and I was not surprised, of course, to see Keedy scramble in even before I had lowered my diving-dress over the side. What did surprise me was to have Miss Kama show up as a passenger. When she stepped past me and went down the ladder my eyes bugged out. I thought ’twas somebody I had never seen before. She wore knickerbockers, and was gaitered to the knees, and she went into the life-boat as nimbly as a midshipman, asking a hand from no one. I could have cracked Keedy across the face with a relish for the way he rolled his eyes at her.

She showed the good sense of an out-of-door girl who understood a thing or two when she picked that costume. Embarking and disembarking with that surf running under a keel was no job for a girl in skirts.

When we came up beside the in-lying lighter we were climbing white-flaked hills of water and coasting dizzily into green valleys. Those waves of the old Pacific which had marched across seas from the lee of the Society Islands were certainly making a great how-de-do in halting on those sand-bars of the Mexican coast; and inshore there in the shallows the surf had a nastier fling to it than off where we had found holding-ground for the old _Zizania_. It was a case of every one for himself in making the transfer from the life-boat to the lighter. I was ready to assist the girl, but she set foot on the gunwale, sprang with the heave of the boat, and landed on deck as lightly as a bird; she could not have done the trick more neatly if she had worn wings on the shoulders of that close-fitting sweater.

There was one cheerful moment for me on that day of anxiety; Keedy was the last passenger out of the lifeboat, and he teetered and made motions to jump, and flinched and squirmed and backed water like a swimmer afraid to plunge in. When he did jump at last he stubbed his toe on the deck of the lighter, and raked that hooked beak of his across the planks. I grinned at him when he staggered up, holding to his bleeding nose, and I went to overhauling my diving-dress, whistling a tune.

I found Number-two Jones and round little Romeo Shank to be helpful handy-Andys after the instructions I had given them. The girl never missed a motion they made in getting me ready. I felt a warm finger trying to worm its way under my rubber wristbands, and I turned to find her looking at me with a great deal of concern. She explained that she wanted to be sure that no water could leak in, and then she seemed to think that she had been just a bit forward, and she blushed.

The next thing I knew she was sturdily fetching one of my twenty-pound shoes, and stood there holding it ready for my helpers. I had gone down a good many times in my life, but I went that day with the happy consciousness of helpful interest in my poor self.

Then they set the helmet on to the breastplate and gave it its one-eighth turn into the screw bayonet joint, and set the thumb-screws. My front eyepiece was hinged like the window of a ship’s port-hole, and this was open. The girl bent down and peered at my face.

“It seems a terrible thing for you to be closed in there--for you to go down into that raging water,” she said, her face close to mine.

“Wish me good luck, and I’ll go humming a tune,” said I, smiling at her.

“With all my heart I do,” she answered, a catch in her voice.

I shut the frame, and Mr. Shank set the turn-screw. With a man on each side of me, I scuffed my way to the ladder, and went over the rail of the lighter. I waited at the foot of the ladder--about ten feet under--until I felt that little pop in my ears which signals to the diver that his Eustachian tube is open, and that the pressure is equalized. Then I yanked the rope to ask for a taut lifeline, and let go my hold.

The sun was bright and the bed of the sea was of sand, and I found good light below. There was a heavy sway to the water even on bottom, but I was strong, and knew how to handle myself. I found my footing, and started along.

My only tool that day was a peaked-nose shovel. I crawled along, using it for a push-pole.

I found the bottom to be a succession of bars, which were parallel with the shore--waves of sand, so to speak, ranging from six to ten feet in height. It was a slow job working one’s way across them. However, they assisted me--there was no danger of getting off one’s course. I needed only to proceed at right angles to the bars. Through my bull’s-eye in that dim green light I could see ahead for some distance. So at last I came to the timbers of the wreck. There was a long tangle of these, a great mass of wreckage hidden by the sea and protruding but a little way above the sand which the eternal surf had packed down. I kept along toward shore until I came to the timbers which, so my eyes told me, must be the ones that marked the location of the wreck. They went looming up through the water. I clung to one of them and rested. I was having no trouble with my air, and now that I had reached the scene of the work that fact comforted me. The movement of the sea in that shallower water was considerable, and now and then a heavier roller jostled me about. But I began to plan out a system of lashings that would anchor me.

Then I got down on my belly, and started to measure paces along the edge of the timbers, following Ike’s instructions as to distance. There was mighty little that was encouraging about the spot which I finally located as the probable site of the treasure-chamber. Sand was billowed and packed there, and the place was quite free from wreckage. It occurred to me that the other divers had dug the timbers away at this point. As I was feeling fairly fresh, I decided to use my shovel a bit.

After five minutes’ toil at that sand I began to perceive why the others had failed, providing Ingot Ike was correct and they _had_ failed. In the first place, there was not the footing on that bottom that a submarine diver needs. I skated about almost helplessly when the heaving sea clutched at me. When I tried to drive the shovel into the sand I was pushed back, and the tool made only scratches on the bottom. Without a prop or a brace, a diver cannot pull or push horizontally with much force even under the best conditions, and when I did succeed in getting the shovel into the sand and scooped a hole, the particles began to settle back, driven by the swaying seas. The giant Pacific was jealous of the treasure it had engulfed.

There was nothing more for me to do down there that day. I began to feel that pain above the eyes which warns the diver. I gave the signal for return, and went back at a lively pace, for the taut line helped.

I saw none of them on the lighter until my helmet had been removed, for when a diver ascends to the air his bull’s-eye becomes covered with mist in spite of the wash of vinegar which has kept the glass clear below. Marcena Keedy was in front of me, looking at my hands, and acting as though he were wondering where I had stowed the find I had made below.

“Well, it’s there, isn’t it?” he demanded.

“From what little I have been able to find out, I reckon it is there,” I told him; “and it wouldn’t surprise me much if it stayed there for some time.” I was in no mood to encourage that polecat, who was plainly thinking more about that treasure than he was about any dangers I might have been through. He drew that streak-o’-paint mustache up against his nose and looked like a dog about to snap. I turned away from him so as to have something better to look at. There was the girl beside me. She sure was an antidote for the poison of Marcena Keedy’s evil eye. Her red lips were apart, and her little hands were clasped, finger interlaced with finger.

“Thank God you are back safe, Mr. Sidney!”

She wasn’t looking at me as though she were wondering in which pocket I had hidden an ingot of gold.

“It was not dangerous,” I told her. “It was disappointing, that’s all.”

I ignored Keedy. I looked past him to Captain Hol-strom, and related what had happened below. It was a mighty interested crowd that stood around me and listened.

“The idea is,” I wound up, “this is no ‘reach-down-and-pick-it-up’ proposition.”

“That’s what I call doing damn little in an hour’s work,” growled Keedy. “You ain’t down here to tell us how hard that job is. We have heard all about that from the other divers. You are down here to get that gold. You bragged around what a devil of a diver you have been, and now when we have to depend on you, all we get is some more conversation. Have you got us away down here and let us in on a dead one?”

“If that money was in a faro-bank instead of a sandbank,” I told him, “you would be just the man to get it out--you have had plenty of practice in that line. But this happens to be an honest job, and it needs something besides false cards.”

Then I kept on talking to the captain:

“After giving the thing a good looking-over I have begun to figure on a few plans. I’ll paw over and size up the stuff on the _Zizania_ this afternoon and see what there is in stock to help me.” I told Mr. Jones to unstrap my shoes.

When Keedy saw them peeling off my dress he had a few more remarks to offer about the kind of a “hot diver” a man was who called an hour a day’s work. If I had brought up an ingot in each hand from that first trip he wouldn’t have been grateful; he would have wanted to know why I did not bring up the whole box.

I had a dirty job of it that afternoon pawing over the old junk on board that steamer, but I managed to sort out some material that fitted into my scheme, and it was ferried to the lighter.

I went down again the next morning at sunrise, for the southwest trade-wind had quieted during the night, and the swell wasn’t quite as energetic as it had been under the push of the breeze the previous day.

I had the same spectators. Miss Kama, looking like a pretty boy in her knickerbockers, had plainly determined to keep in the front row, and I’ll own up that her presence put ginger into my efforts. I reckoned I’d show her the difference between a man who could do and dare and a sneering loafer of the caliber of Keedy. A handsome girl usually has an effect of that sort on a young man.