“I counted twenty-three cases in the forehold, and there are two at least in the after-hold,” said Bennett.
“Two millions,” said Hawke.
“Two millions!” whispered Margaret, and at her awed tone Hawke burst into a high-pitched roar of laughter. Bennett caught the contagion, and then Elliott, and they laughed and laughed, a shrill nervous peal, till they could not leave off.
“Stop it!” shouted Henninger.
“We’ll never have a chance to laugh like this again,” Hawke managed to ejaculate, and there was a renewed outburst.
“Brace up. You’re all hysterical!” said Henninger, sharply, and they gradually regained self-control. “Come,” he continued, “we’ve got to get the rest of that stuff aboard. Hawke, you and Miss Laurie will repack that box again just as it was before. Make a memorandum of the number of bricks in it, and, Miss Laurie, you will keep a tally of the boxes as they come down.”
This time, Elliott volunteered to go below, and he donned the diving-dress, and lumbered over the side. It was easy enough to slide down the steep slope of the steamer’s deck; in fact, he scarcely knew when he became submerged, but it required a summoning of all his courage to jump into the black gulf of the hold.
He floated down through the water as lightly as a falling leaf, however, and landed without a jar upon a miscellaneous mass of tumbled freight. There was a faint green-gold light in the place, and at first it was hard to distinguish anything, but as his eyes grew more accustomed to the strange gloom he made out the articles of cargo distinctly. There were boxes and cases of every size and shape, with barrels and bales and shapeless things in crates—very much the same heterogeneous mixture, in fact, as he had seen in the after-hold.
The air began to buzz in his ears, and according to directions he knocked his head against the valve in the back of the helmet and released the pressure. The coolness penetrated through his armour; and, but for the rubbery taste of the air he breathed, he found the situation decidedly pleasant, for the depth was too slight to cause any feeling of oppression.
He examined the cases, bending his helmet close over them, for it was not easy to make out their almost erased markings. He found that he had been standing on one of the gold chests, and he hitched the tackles to it, astonished to find that he could move its heavy weight with considerable ease. He signalled through the life-line, and the case was hoisted up, and disappeared out of his sight.