“All right, Chief,” grinned the negro, dropping the wire and stripping off his scanty garments. “Ah’ll mos’ surely ascertain, Chief.”
The next instant he had plunged off the deck and all waited expectantly for his reappearance. After what seemed a tremendously long interval his wooly head bobbed up close to the stern and shaking the water from his eyes he swam easily to the submerged deck and pulled himself up.
“Tha’s nothin’ wrong this side, Chief,” he announced as he recovered his breath. “Ah’ll go down tha’ other side an’ have a look.”
Presently he rose, felt his way along the deck with the water to his armpits and reaching a point near the bow again dove.
Again he reappeared near the stern and the satisfied grin upon his face assured Rawlins that he had news.
“Yaas, Sir!” he announced as he drew himself onto the boat. “Ah foun’ it, Chief. Tha’ a big hole aft, Chief. Looks like it been bored in tha’ plates, Chief.”
“Well, what in thunder!” cried Rawlins. “Come on, Sam, I’m going to have a look. Show me where ’tis. I’m no fish like you, but I can stay down long enough for that.”
Poising himself on the boat’s thwart with Sam beside him, Rawlins waited for the word and together the two figures, one white, one black, plunged into the sea.
Presently the two heads bobbed up side by side and breathing hard Rawlins scrambled into the boat.
“I’ll say it’s bored!” he exclaimed. “Burned! Cut clean through with an acetylene torch!”