"You'll be all right soon," I said sympathisingly, as I left him. He was the best example of a bluffer I had ever come across, but he had the true grit of the sons of the Southern Cross, and as he knew nothing of navigation, he got along wonderfully well by leaving everything to fate and Aguinili.
It was a very rough night, but the Bessie Fraser weathered it all right, thanks to the skilful handling of the sarang. Next evening we entered King Sound, and by seven o'clock were safely moored alongside the schooner Electron, George Hobart's headquarters.
This gentleman was a very superior person to those usually met in such latitudes; he was of a scientific turn of mind, and had designed many strange appliances which were the wonder and admiration of the pearling fraternity.
"You have just arrived in time to witness the trial of my new dress," were almost his first words to me; and after dinner, in answer to my inquiry, he proceeded to explain wherein his dress differed from others, and to point out its anticipated advantages. "Sixteen fathoms is the greatest depth at which we can work with the old dress, you know," he said, "and even at that a diver can only last out three seasons."
"Well, what's the odds?" interrupted Quin; "they're cheap, ain't they? and there's any amount where they come from."
"That may be; but this dress is designed to give the diver a longer lease of life, and also to enable him to stand a good two or three fathoms more pressure. I have just got down a new G.B. dress from Singapore, and I intend to try mine alongside it to-morrow."
I did not then know what a G.B. dress was, but not wishing to display my ignorance, I did not inquire, and during the evening's conversation I gathered that it was the invention of two Glasgow engineers, who had designed it to allow of greater depths being explored.
In the morning all hands began to prepare for the trials, and after breakfast Aguinili, as the most experienced diver, was lowered from the derrick in the G.B. dress, and Jim Mackenzie, the Electron's chief officer, was also weighted and dropped over in Hobart's.
"Isn't there a nigger handy to go down in the old dress now?" asked Quin, kicking over a helmet. "I'll go two to one on it yet."
"The water is too deep here," answered Hobart. "No man could bottom in the old dress."