The doctor had twice over suggested that we had been too long in the water, but everyone was in such a state of excitement, and there was so much cheering as box after box of silver was recovered, that his advice was unheeded, and in the midst of quite a burst of cheers I seized the basket by the handles and took my fifth plunge into what seemed to be a sea of glowing fire, so glorious was the sunshine as the sun sank lower in the west.
I knew where the last one lay, just where it had been shot when the boat overturned, and it was on its side in the midst of a number of blocks of stone tangled with weed. The boat had been shifted a little, and I came down right by it, turned it over and over into the basket; but as I did so I slipped, and something dark came over me. My legs passed between a couple of stones, and then as I tried to recover myself and rise the darkness increased, a strange confusion came over me, and then all was blank till I heard someone say:
“Yes; he’ll do now.”
My head was aching frightfully, and there was a strange confused sensation in my head that puzzled me, and made me wonder why my feet were so hot, and why my father was leaning over me holding my hand.
Then he appeared to sink down out of sight as a door was shut, and I heard him muttering as I thought to himself, and he seemed to say something about being better that everything should have been lost than that have happened.
I couldn’t make it out, only that he was in terrible trouble, and his face looked haggard and thin as he rose up again and bent over me to take me in his arms as he looked closely in my face.
Then, as he held me to his breast, I could feel that he was sobbing, and I heard him say distinctly in a low reverent tone:
“Thank God—thank God!”