Madge Morton's Victory

by Amy D. V. Chalmers

There were hundreds of things that Madge would have liked to confide to Captain Jules. However, for once in her life, she was compelled to hold her tongue. Her eyes, her hands, and her feet she could keep busy. Now and then she gave a little ejaculation of wonder inside her copper helmet at the marvels she saw. No one heard her cry out. Captain Jules wasted no time. He was exceedingly business-like. He motioned to Madge just where she should go and what she should do, and she obediently followed.

There were long, level flats of sand in the bottom of Delaware Bay, like small prairies. Then there were exquisite oases of waving green seaweed, gardens of sea flowers and ferns, and hillocks of rocks, with all sorts of queer sea animals, crabs, jelly-fish, and devil-fish, scurrying about them.

Caught in the moss, encrusted on the rocks, sunken in the yellow sands, were opalescent, shining shells and pebbles, each one more beautiful than the last. Madge did not realize that if she carried these shells and pebbles above the water they would look like ordinary stones. Every now and then the young diver would stoop and drop one of them in her netted bag with a thrill of excitement.

Again and again Captain Jules had assured Madge that she must not expect to find any pearls of much value in Delaware Bay. There were few pearls in edible oysters. The beds about Cape May were meant to supply the family table, not the family jewels. Of course, it was true, the Captain admitted, that a pearl did appear now and then in an ordinary oyster. Yet this was an accident and most unlikely to occur.

Madge had really tried not to believe that she was going to find any kind of prize in the new world under the water. In spite of all her efforts she had been thinking and planning and hoping. Perhaps—perhaps she would find a pearl of great price. Then her troubles would be at an end.

All this time Madge had been breathing naturally and comfortably inside her helmet as she traveled along the bed of the bay. She was so unconscious of any difficulty that she was beginning to believe that she was, in truth, a mermaid, and that water, and not air, was her natural element. Suddenly she felt a little uneasy, as though the windows of her room had been closed for too long a time. It was nothing, she was sure. The stifling sensation would pass in another second.

At this moment Captain Jules gazed hard at Madge. He had never forgotten his charge for a moment. But all seemed well with her, and the captain thought he saw ahead of him something that was well worth investigating. He dropped on his knees in the soft mud. With him he had a small hammer and a fork, not unlike a gardener’s. Shining through some green sea moss so soft and fine that it might have been the hair of a water-baby, Captain Jules had espied some glittering shells. To his experienced eye the glow was that of mother-of-pearl. It is the mother-of-pearl shell that usually covers the precious pearl. The old sailor set to work. Madge was eagerly watching him, when once again the faint stifling sensation swept over her. Surely it was not possible to faint in a diving suit. Besides, Madge’s heart was beating so furiously with excitement that it was small wonder she could not get her breath. She believed that Captain Jules was about to discover a wonderful pearl. He had wrenched the shells free and was trying to open them. Madge stood some feet away from him, quivering with excitement.

“‘And the sea shall give up its treasures’,” she quoted softly to herself as she watched.

The next moment her hands made an involuntary movement in the water. Had she been on land her gesture would have meant that she was fighting for breath. To her horror she realized that she was slowly suffocating. Something must have happened to her air-pump above the water. She was not faint from any other cause, but was getting an insufficient supply of fresh air.

At this moment Madge proved her mettle. She remembered Captain Jules’s injunction, “Keep a clear head under the water and there is nothing to fear.” She knew the signal for more fresh air, and gave two hard, quick pulls on her life line. Then she waited. Relief would surely come in a moment.