“All ready to put the diver overboard, sir.”
“Very good. Make sure that all is well before doing so.”
“All is in proper condition.”
The diver, as he stood waiting for the order to descend, appeared in his diving suit like some strange and hideous monster from the deep. Sam gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder.
“Then put him over.”
A splash followed, the diver disappearing beneath the water, while the diver’s assistants rapidly paid out the rubber tubing and the ropes attached to the diver’s costume.
“Bottom, sir,” announced the man at the ropes.
“Watch his signals.”
There followed several minutes of tense waiting, the rhythmic “clank!” “clank!” of the apparatus that supplied the diver with fresh air being the only sound save the lapping of the water to break the stillness.