“You’re right, Li. There’s something down there.” He slid down the mast. “But how are we going to find out just what it is?”
Li grinned. “That’s easy, Biff. You have on board your ship Easy Action, Captain Brewster, none other than the world’s record-holding free skin diver, Likake Mahenili.”
“You’re going to dive down there?” Biff said, awe in his voice.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, you’re not going to until we sound for the depth here. What’s the deepest dive you’ve ever made, Li?”
“Forty-five, maybe fifty feet if I stretch it a little,” Li replied.
Biff got out the sounding line. This was a thin, strong rope. It had a heavy sinker on the end. At intervals of one foot, it had a metal weight to mark off the depth. Biff tossed it overboard. The line seemed to run out endlessly. Biff was afraid the ocean’s depth here was going to turn out to be too great for Li to try a dive. Then he felt the thud of the heavy sinker touching bottom. He drew the rope tight.
“Here we go. Let’s both count the markers as we pull it up.”
Biff worked slowly, carefully. They couldn’t risk any mistakes in their count.
When the sinker broke the surface, Biff looked at Li. “How many markers did you count?”