Part 30

Down and down--five feet more, so I reckoned. Then my heart gave a jump. My feet had touched something. It was smooth and hard and flat, and spread under me horizontally. But I soon discovered that it had too large a surface to be a box of ingots. I could not bend over to feel it with my hands, for the rush of the whirlpool of sand and water about me, sweeping upward, would not allow me to force my helmet and the upper part of my body down. I must depend on my bare feet to tell me what I had struck.

After a time I knew. It was boiler plate. I could feel the round heads of bolts. Whether this plate formed a part of the treasure-chamber or not I did not know. But it was an obstacle which must be passed. I turned my nozzle in front of me to clear the way. I wanted to reach the end of that iron plate.

In two ticks of an eight-day clock I was in a mess that has been my nightmare ever since. I began to get a thorough education in what sand will do under water when it is submitted to the force of a stream from a hose. The instant I turned that nozzle in front of me the sand rushed in from behind. I was grabbed as tightly as though the eight feelers of a devil-fish had encircled me.

It must be remembered that this whole proposition was an experiment so far as I was concerned. I did not know then how quickly a stream of water can affect great quantities of sand under the sea, let that sand get in motion. Tons can be moved almost while one takes a breath.

This shift was so sudden that I was not prepared for it. My legs were pinioned, and my arms seemed to be clutched at the elbows. The sand was packing in around me from behind. I was so scared that my hands loosened on the nozzle. A roller snatched the hose from my grasp.

The nozzle was upended and began to sizzle away over my head. It kept the sand moving there, and the murky water still swirled about my helmet, and the pack was not allowed to settle on my head. But as to the rest of my body, it was as if I had been immersed in molten metal and it had cooled around me. In a few seconds I was immovable. I was buried completely in sand, except for my wrists and hands. In clutching for the hose, as it had been yanked away, I had raised my hands above my head, and they were now waving in the swirl of the whirlpool. I groped and stretched and strove, and at last I felt the tips of my fingers on the nozzle. I managed, after a while, to tilt it down a bit so that the stream played along my arms to the elbows. The temporary release of my forearms did not help me. I couldn’t get hold of that hose so as to turn the nozzle full upon myself. The sand kept packing more closely about my legs and body.

After a time my aching hands and arms were obliged to give up the fight. I had become so weakened by my struggles and strainings that I was faint--I was as feeble as a baby.

I have read about men in awful peril who have resigned themselves to die. Mentally I was not resigned when I first gave up struggling--not for some time. I came out of that first faintness, wide awake to my danger, filled with frightful fear, mad with the longing to live. But my case seemed hopeless. The stream was keeping the sand in motion still about my helmet and over my head, but my hands informed me that the pack was gradually settling, that the sand was piling up around my neck slowly but surely. In the boil of that water the particles were drifting over me.

I might live minutes, I reflected--I might linger there for an hour or more--feeling that sand pack around my head until it choked the valve of the helmet or pinched off the current in the air-hose.

Never was I so hungry for life as when I stood there pinioned hand and foot in the Pacific’s bed, feeling the sand piling up against the glass of my helmet, sifting around me to chink the little cranny where the air bubbled from the valve. And all because a stream of water would not swerve ten inches and pour itself in my direction.

Then something surprising happened to my soul in its agony. I’m telling the truth.

When I had made up my mind that effort was useless, that I had done all that I could do, and that death was certain, a strange feeling came to me and took away my fear of death. I fell into a quiet and really exalted frame of mind. I floated in dreams. Cares of earth and worries of the world, lust for gold, and even the love of woman seemed very small matters. What did it all matter? I was dying. Peace came to me.

Is it not probable that kind nature or a kinder God thus smooths the way into eternity when the great moment comes? Men who have been nigh the last gasp have swapped stories with me and we all agree.

I had no notion of the length of time I had been down. In my mistiness of mind I did not bother about time. In the case of a submarine diver, the hours are marked off by his sensations, and he knows when he has stayed down long enough. If my men had told me that I had been on the bed of the ocean for a day and a night I should not have disputed them. I must have been near death, for it is said that when one is dying all of life that has been lived comes before the mind and passes in review, as though the mortal soul were preparing its brief for the use of the recording angel. I remember that this last was a strange idea which came to me there in the sand-pack which was slowly heaping itself over my head.

Then something happened. It was something which should have amazed me, but I reckon that my brain was too numbed to feel amazement.

The nozzle above my head gave a sudden yank and rapped my knuckles. It righted itself. That is to say, it aimed downward and began to pour water directly at and over me. I felt the stream rather than saw it. I could not see in that smother of sand. But my arms came out of the mold in which they had been pinned. I grabbed and groped for that hose with all the desperation that was in me. I held to it with all my strength. It was lucky that I seized it as I did, for I felt the rollers tugging at it once more as though some devil of the sea had given me one more chance in order to tantalize me, and was now resolved to finish me finally.

I did not know what had happened above to cause the sudden deflection of the stream. It was enough for me to know that some freak of the waters had turned the hose. I found out later what had occurred, and I may as well explain at this point, lest you think I have told merely of a case of story-book Providence.

I have related how I anchored my lines fifty feet from the wreck. That anchor, so I found later, had been pulled out of the sand, and the surges had bellied the water-hose in toward shore, over my head, and the aim of the nozzle had been changed in the snap of a finger. It surely had been touch and go with me, for once the surge had taken up the slack the next wave must have jerked the hose out of my hole. I had grabbed just in time; I had melted my sand mold and was free.

Common sense advised me to quit the job forever. The uncertainties of trying to move sand with a stream of water had been impressed upon me in horrible fashion. But common sense is not allowed to rule a man when he is after gold in this world. I had found out what that stream would accomplish if it was used properly. I had learned one lesson which I could not forget, and I was sure I would not make the mistake of letting the sand catch me from behind again. I knew, on the other hand, what would happen to me when I appeared above the surface without my ransom fee of yellow gold. I preferred to stay and fight sand instead of men. There, in the boil of the roiled water, I resolved to stay down.

I tried another experiment with the hose, and was-, vastly encouraged. I had been worrying and wondering how I would get back out of the hole, for I feared that the-life-line, playing over the edge of the sand, would not allow the men on the lighter enough direct pull; to help me much. Now I needed to rise from the hole for a littleway in order to attack the sand at another angle so as to pass that plate of boiler iron.

I slackened the force of the stream from the nozzle with my palm, and the sand began to pack in below me. The uprush of the swirling water helped me and I was able to work myself slowly upward. Then I began to. bore again.

I realized now that something must have happened to, my anchor, because the rollers were giving me battle for-the possession of that water-hose in fierce style. But I hung on, and found myself sinking into the sand. I went, down more rapidly, for I had already softened the surrounding pack. After the awful experience I had just had, I was more of a lunatic than sane while I made that, second attempt. My brain swirled as dizzily as the water which swept up from the hole. As nearly as I could estimate, I went down at least five yards before I struck anything that was solid. And when my feet, already sore from the grinding of that sand, felt what was below them, the whole of my being gave three cheers--not cheers with, the mouth, but those silent cheers with which a man’s soul yells its joy. I had touched a box. There were its comers--there was its unmistakable shape.

After wild struggles and contortions, I was able to set the points of the ice-tongs into its sides. I gave the signal on the drag-rope, and I could feel the surge of the men on the line. But the angle of the rope over the edge of the hole would not allow them to lift very hard. The box was too far away from the lighter for their efforts to amount to much. But as they swayed away I kept the hose playing upon the box and under it. It did seem damnably slow work. But it came up, inch by inch, slowly and surely, until I was out of the hole, and standing about knee-deep in the sand. I had a tug of war of it then!

The box was not out of the hole. The rollers tugged at my lines and wrenched at me. Once or twice I was fairly floored. I would fall with my legs pinioned fast, and would lie exhausted until I could get strength to stand up and wash myself free with the hose. In order to get back out of that hole at all, I was obliged to slacken the stream and let the sand pack in under myself and the box--and when the stream slackened I was obliged to drag my legs out of the packing sand.

But I was free at last, bless the good Lord! And I had a box of gold. It was not a mere stray box, salvaged with the help of a freakish undertow. It was a box which I had torn from the heart of the hoard below. Yes, I was sure that I had been to the heart of the treasure. And where I had been the Pacific was already stuffing back the sand, locking the door once more on the gold it had taken for its own. Let Keedy’s men come down! Let them waste their strength. I had the key to that situation--and I alone.

I tugged a signal to shut off the water. And as promptly I gave them pull-up signals on my life-line and on the drag-cord of the tongs. I wanted to get above the sea and breathe the fresh air of the good God, and look into the eye of the blessed sun, and give praises. And, oh, the awful weariness in every bone and muscle of me! I lay down and let ’em pull me back. I had no strength with which to manage that weight of metal which loaded me down.

When they got me upon the deck of the lighter, and had twisted off my helmet, I lay for a long time without words. I motioned to Number-two Jones to remove the cover from the box I had brought. The sight of those ingots gave me the goad once more--ah, it takes gold to make the human soul gallop!

“Gold, gold, yellow gold,

Hard to get and harder to hold.”

This quotation burst from Mr. Shank. His round face was radiant, and he came and leaned over me and patted me on the head. He did not seem to have any better way of showing his joy. It was a wildly excited crew which crowded around me; they were still more excited when I sat up on deck at last and told them I was going down again. The fever was in me. I wanted to go back to the _Zizania_ with gold enough, to convince Captain Holstrom and those knaves of customs men that there was no fluke about our proposition. I wanted to raise that infernal Keedy out of this game for good and all.

It was mighty tempestuous water in the vicinity of the wreck, and putting the lighter nearer was not to be thought of. But I discussed with Mate Jones the possibility of dropping our yawl back toward the wreck at the end of a cable, so that the men could lift the treasure-boxes more directly. We had brought extra men that morning for the pump, and a crew for the surf-boat volunteered. The gold lust was seizing the whole of us.

I went down again, feeling sure that the wicked labor of getting the box up through the sand would be lightened for me.

I took another anchor, and on my way to the wreck I refastened my hose lines to the bottom, rigging the second anchor as a bridle, so that the strain would be eased on the one which I had set into the sand.

Down I bored again, my tongs at my belt, my hose in my clutch. And I stayed down until I had sent three more boxes up to the surf-boat. While I was toiling down there I knew that I was setting a dangerous record for myself--I could not hope to equal it on the days which were to follow. It was plain that I had penetrated to the heart of the treasure, but I had penetrated to other things as well. I found all the sculch and broken crockery of the wrecked pantry and the bar of the _Golden Gate_. Yes, I sent three more boxes to the lighter; but when I crawled over the rail later my hands and feet were bleeding, and the sand had ground into the wounds. Already my skin showed where the grinding of the boiling sand was wearing the epidermis. Even the rubber of my suit was showing wear.

I was a sorry-looking object when I staggered into Capt. Rask Holstrom’s state-room. He fairly slavered in his rage and tried to leap at me. I reckon I did look like a beaten man. But the next instant my men came tramping in with the boxes of gold. There were four of these glorious boxes, and each one was open and showed the ingots.

“Your friend Keedy got his two boxes by the fluke of an undertow,” I told him. “I have got mine by science and a system which will give us the rest of it. Now, Captain Holstrom, I’ll accept your apologies.” And I cut him loose.

I did not mention any apologies due from me to him. I wanted to rub it into the old squarehead so thoroughly that he would never get the smart of it out of his skin. I wanted to let him know that I had set a ring into his nose, and that if he ever tried to run amuck again I was the man who could catch him and trip him.

He gave me one look, gasped one gasp, and I knew that Capt. Rask Holstrom had abdicated his throne. I was boss. But I had no time to listen to his slobbering thanks just then. I took one of those bars of gold in my bloody hand and started for my state-room. I shook the ingot under the noses of those customs men. And they, too, knew that I was boss when I got through with them. I had not come back that day from hell and the bottom of the sea to mince words with any loafers--Captain Holstrom included.

“Here’s gold worth four thousand dollars in good Yankee money, you low-down renegades. You take it and get off this steamer. If you are good, and come around here like gentlemen about a month from now, perhaps I’ll drop another rock into your hat. I don’t promise--it all depends on how you act. But if you come back too quick--if you try to squeeze us for more rake-off--I’ll go down to headquarters and buy your blessed Government, and have you put into prison or shot--for before this thing is ended here I’ll have more than three million dollars behind me. Now you can either make a dollar quietly or you can make trouble. Suit yourselves.”

I cut their ropes and pushed them out of the room and ordered our ensign set to signal their boat.

I didn’t have to offer them any apologies, either, and I was not in an apologizing mood that day. They did the apologizing while they were waiting for their boat, and I scowled while they were begging me to forgive the mistake they had made.

Yes, I felt pretty much like the boss of the outfit. But when Kama Holstrom came with hot water and a basin and bandages and ordered me into my state-room, I went as meekly as a slave who trembles when the finger of his master is pointed.

XXXIV--AMONG THIEVES

I DID not go down next day, and I watched the descent of Keedy’s divers with indifference that was pretty nigh serene. Captain Holstrom stamped around restlessly, for he couldn’t seem to get it into his mind that the Pacific Ocean was on guard. But he did not venture to make any suggestions to me, and I decided that I had trained him in pretty fair shape.

I had good reason for delaying my next descent. It would not do to take chances with my diving-dress, which was showing signs of being frayed by the swirling sand, and I put in a busy day with the two Joneses, stitching an extra canvas suit to wear over the rubber dress. I improved on the ice-tongs by having a set of steel spring hooks made so that by means of long handles I could push them over a box without stooping and fumbling. Also I had a long rod of steel turned out for me, and with this I could probe the sand for boxes.

I had no way of knowing whether Keedy or his divers suspected that I had secured any treasure. I knew that after a night of action of the sea there would be few traces left where I had disturbed the sand. But I also knew that Keedy would certainly be wondering why we had built the wall around the lighter, and therefore we doubled the guards who had spent the night there since we had installed the pump, and gave the men orders to shoot any man who tried to climb on board.

We started work on a bigger and more elaborate pump, having tested out the principle of the thing by means of the first one. I needed more stream. While Shank was building this I went to work again, using the old equipment.

I waited each day until the other divers had been down and had climbed back into the sunlight, empty-handed. Then I slid overboard from our lighter as secretly as possible, and did my day’s work. I averaged three boxes a. trip by working myself to the limit of my endurance. It was reported to me that Keedy climbed into the rigging of the schooner whenever the surf-boat was eased back toward the wreck, and that he remained there on watch. How much he saw we did not know, but the men in the boat crowded together whenever a box was raised. From what I learned afterward, I found that Keedy thought we were operating some kind of a dredge, and that his divers reported to him that we were not making any impression on the sand. So he sat calmly in the rigging, spying on what he could see, and reckoning that we were wasting our time the same as his crew.

Before the end of a week the new pump was finished and I had almost five hundred gallons a minute at my command.

I do not mean to be profane, but I must state that when I got that new stream to operating it was hell for me down below--and no other phrase seems to express the case.

I have already mentioned the refuse of that wrecked pantry and bar; from out of the holes I bored rushed up bits of broken bottles and crockery, slashing at my bare feet and hands. I could not protect them.

The stream from the nozzle--a three-inch stream--stirred such a mush of sand that I worked in pitch darkness. I had to have bare feet and hands in order to feel my way.

After a time, my feet were swollen to twice their natural size. Finger-nails and toe-nails had been worn off by the grinding of the sand, and the skin had been eaten off. The sand even penetrated my dress, and my knees and shoulders were chafed raw. My back, under the dragging weights I was forced to wear, was about like a piece of pounded steak. I was suffering the limit of human agony, but I was mad for success--I was crazed by the gold lust. I was bringing out a small fortune every day; one day I recovered six boxes--one hundred and twenty thousand dollars! But I was still just as hungry for the gold that remained at the bottom. I set my teeth, gasped back my groans, and kept at work.

All the tender ministrations of Kama Holstrom could not mend my hurts, and I would not listen to her appeals to me. She begged me to give up the fight. She urged that we had enough. But I was as crazy as the wildest man who ever hunted gold, and the pain I was in made me more of a lunatic. On several occasions I was pulled back to the lighter in a dead faint, and fought with Number-two Jones because he would not send me down again that day.

I cannot go into the details of those days of nightmare. I can only say that I kept on.

We soon had plain hints that Keedy was getting suspicious and uneasy. One night a crew from the schooner made a desperate attempt to board the lighter. On other nights they made other tries, and shots were exchanged before they were driven off.

One day when I was at the bottom of the hole I had bored and had just succeeded in fastening my hooks to a box, I got a shock that made me believe the end of the world had come. Something hit me on the top of the helmet with a thud that knocked me senseless for a moment. I reached out quickly with one hand, reserving the other for my hose, and felt the breastplate of a diver. I realized what had happened then. One of Keedy’s men, sent to spy, had stumbled through the sand swirling from my pit, and had fallen in on me, not dreaming that I had been able to dig a fifteen-foot hole.

In the tangle that followed, it was a wonder that either of us escaped.

By the way the man struggled I knew that he was terrified out of his senses. He clung to me desperately, as a drowning man might ding to a rescuer. Then he gave his emergency pull, and yanked me with him when he went up.

I had a raw temper which went with my raw surface in those terrible days. I left hose and box and went up with the caller, dragging my knife from my belt. I kept clashing the knife against the front bull’s-eye of his helmet, and after we had been dragged together for some distance from the edge of the hole, and the sea became clearer, he perceived what I was doing. He let go his clutch, and it was well he did, for I was in a state of maniacal fury. I would have ripped his dress from crotch to neck-band with my knife if he had not escaped from me just as he did. I went back and recovered my hose, and after a time got the box. Then I returned to the lighter, for I was too unnerved to work any longer that day.

As I lay on deck that afternoon, a shapeless, hideous thing of bruised and macerated flesh, I wondered whether I would be able to work any more.

When I was under the sea I was fairly beside myself with the excitement of the hunt. I could grind my teeth together and groan and fight my way through the sand, for there was gold at the bottom of the hole I was digging. And every time I went down through that fifteen feet of smother I knew that death raced me to the box of treasure and back. Under those circumstances, a man is desperate enough to forget his bloody cuts and raw skin. But I felt like a pretty weak and useless tool as I lay there on deck.

Kama Holstrom was with me. She had insisted on becoming my nurse. I craved her companionship, I’ll admit, but I wanted to hide myself from her eyes. Her father was in his state-room, busy at his job of adding more sheets of iron, more bands of steel, to the treasure-chest he had taken it upon himself to build. We could hear the bang of his hammer. Captain Holstrom worked days at that huge chest, slept on it nights with the key lashed into the palm of his right hand, and between whiles cuddled those ingots rapturously. In his way, he had become as insane over the matter as I was myself.