He had now been down a considerable while, and muttered:
“The captain promised to signal me if trouble came, and he hasn’t done so. But, for all that, I don’t believe it will be safe for me to stay down here much longer. I may as well–––”
The sentence was never finished, for it received a startling interruption. The rubber pipes by which he breathed were suddenly closed, and Abe Storms knew it had been done purposely by some one above.
CHAPTER XIV
THE REVOLT
For a brief while after the descent of the mate of the Coral, incased in his new diving armor, the four men above did nothing more than merely wait for his coming up. But all the time the parties were watching each other, for Captain Bergen was convinced that the crisis was at hand. The mutineers had learned where the oyster-bed was, and therefore could be no longer restrained by that consideration. They could get on without the diving-armor, though they saw how convenient it might be to have it; but, since it was connected with the shore, it could be drawn in and recovered if they should need it.
The mate was down in the ocean, and the captain was standing on terra firma. What more favorable separation was likely to present itself? Here were three men against one, and the three had gained the secret which had restrained them so long.
“I say,” said Hyde Brazzier, “does the mate down there find things as he expected?”