“No one?”
“No one. All round the bottom did I go—and there was no one. Au! it is fearsome down there in the gloom and the silence, and the great eels gliding about like snakes. But she whom you seek must be found elsewhere. Not under that water is she.”
Was he going on the native principle of telling you what you would most like to know? I wondered. Then Falkner began kicking off his boots.
“Here goes for a search on my own account,” he said. “Coming, Glanton? If there’s nothing to hurt him, there’s nothing to hurt us. We’ll try his dodge of holding a couple of stones. We’ll get down further that way.”
Ivondwe shook his head.
“You will not get down at all,” he said, in English.
“I’ll have a try at any rate. Come along, Glanton.”
I am at home in the water but not for any time under it. Half the time spent by Ivondwe down there would have been enough to drown me several times over. However I would make the attempt.
The result was even as I expected. With all the will in the world I had not the power, and so far from getting to the bottom, I was forced to return to the surface almost immediately. Falkner fared not much better.
“It must be an awful depth,” he said. “I couldn’t even touch bottom, and I’m no slouch in the diving line.”