“Here you goes right under the schooner, and must have hitched the chube in the ladder; that’s what you must have done.”
“There, it’s of no use to argue with you, Rasp,” said Dutch. “I’m all right again now, thank you, doctor; but I’m sure of one thing: the supply of air was stopped somehow, and I’ve had a bit of a shaking.”
“And I’m sure it just wasn’t,” growled Rasp. “Everything went just as it should go. There!”
Dutch rose without assistance, and as he did so Hester, with a sigh of misery, shrank away, feeling that she could never look upon his face again.
“But I have saved his life,” she sighed to herself. “I have saved his life;” and then, shuddering with horror, and asking herself whether the time had not come when she had better die, she crept slowly to the cabin stairs, descended, and, sinking into a chair by her cot, sat there and sobbed as if her heart would break.
Dutch smiled with pleasure as he stood up and found that he could take a few steps here and there without feeling his brain reel, for Oakum took off his old straw hat, waved it round his head, and the men gave a hearty cheer.
“It weer too bad o’ you though to stop his wind Rasp, owd mate,” growled Oakum, in the old diver’s ear.
Rasp looked daggers at him, and then proceeded to wipe and polish the helmet, from which he had been removing some grains of sand.
“Have a cigar, Mr Pugh,” said Wilson, holding out his case, and then shaking hands, an example followed by Mr Parkley, the captain, and John Studwick, who stood looking at him with admiration.
“I have done nothing but shake your hands for the last ten minutes, Mr Pugh,” said the doctor, warmly, “but we may as well shake hands again, though really our old friend Rasp here, with his rough-and-ready means, was principal attendant.”