“It was so foolish,” said Bessy, “to sit there the night through. It is not the way to grow strong.”
From the noise on deck it was evident that preparations for diving were rapidly going on, and now another dread assailed Hester. She felt sure that Dutch would be one of the first to go down, and she shuddered as she thought of the sharks, and determined to make an effort to dissuade him.
She was on the point of going on deck when Lauré’s words stayed her. She was watched, and if she tried to communicate with her husband might he not interpret it as an attempt to betray him, and in an instant compass his destruction.
“If I only knew what to do?” she moaned. “If I could but warn him of the danger they might seize that villain in time. I will warn him at all hazards.”
She was ready to die to save Dutch from peril, but she was so circumstanced that her warning would compass his destruction, and she sank back feeling at last that she could not betray what she knew.
For the moment she was reassured by hearing Dutch’s voice, and directly after Bessy came to fetch her into the cabin to breakfast, where all save she were in high spirits, no one having a suspicion of the danger that threatened them. The talk was all of the treasure, and the specimen ingots that Lauré had shown them were mentioned, while to Hester’s horror she found that the Cuban was apparently forgotten.
It soon became evident to her that all the preparations had been made, and she followed the actors in the busy scene to be enacted on deck as soon as the hurried meal was at an end.
Dutch had glanced at her once, and her heart throbbed with pleasure as she read his look as one more of sorrow than anger, and this last determined her to speak to him at all hazards.
The air-pump was ready, with Rasp dictating and ordering the men about; and had Hester felt any hesitation before, the sight of Dutch drawing on the heavy india-rubber suit determined her to act.
“I don’t think their teeth would go through this,” he said coolly to Mr Parkley, “if they come; but we’ll do what we said, and that will keep them off.”