Suddenly he felt a determined tug at the lifeline about his waist, and as this was the usual code query as to how he was, he gave Bob a responding tug. He was getting deeper now. Without the slightest warning, he found that he was beginning to see things around him.
A fish darted past, almost flicking its tail against his front glass. Then a long streamer of seaweed rose at his right, frightening him at first in the belief that it was a snake. And with that, marine life was all around him, there came a shock—and he knew that he had reached the bottom, eight fathoms down!
Beyond a slight ringing in his ears, he felt no unwonted sensations. All about him was marine life—shells and slime and solid coral underneath his feet, with queer things that seemed to slide away from his presence. There was a little seaweed, but not much; sponges, sea fans, and several tiny writhing octopi that shot away and vanished in the obscurity. He could distinctly hear the strokes of the pumps, regular and steady.
"Good old Holly!" he thought. "But—this ain't getting Jerry."
He realized that as there was no wreck in sight in front or to the sides, and as the landing-stage of the Seamew had been directly over it, he must be facing away from the wreck. So far, he had not moved. Now, as he tried to turn about, he found himself bounding up several feet, and laughed to himself as he remembered Jerry's lessons.
But he had turned about—and the scene before him made him start back in awe and amazement. Hardly ten feet away from him was the wreck—a great dim shape with streaming sea growth and barnacles that rose more like a huge rock than anything else. A trifle above the level of his head flamed out a little silver line of light—it was the kris, protruding handle outward from the barnacled wood. But where was Jerry?
Then he saw, and moved forward with a terrible fear lest he had been too slow. The kris was stuck in the wreck at a corner, where the huge mass had split apart and had made a V-shaped opening. Just inside this lay the motionless form of Jerry, who must have become insensible from lack of air. Beyond a doubt he had penetrated into the opening, and as he did so his hose and line had caught on the kris and parted. The very weapon he had counted on for safety had betrayed him!
As he moved forward, Mart took precautions against the same danger, by pulling out the kris and sticking it into the wood again farther ahead. Then, with that strange lightness that divers feel, he leaped forward, clutching at his spare line. Swiftly drawing his knife across it, for he had no time now to untie knots, he caught the end under Jerry's shoulders and knotted it. Looking down into the glass of Jerry's helmet, he could make out that the old man's eyes were closed, while his mouth was open and was feebly gasping for air.
"By golly, I just got here in time!" thought Mart with a quick breath of relief. "He'll have to go up first, I guess. Bob can't haul us both."
With that, he separated the spare line from his own, and tugged it four times. Bob must have been in desperate fear, for he never paused to reply, but the form of Jerry rose almost at once.