"That ends it!" he thought despairingly. "The tide hasn't ebbed enough."
He fell forward, unable to lift the weight of that copper helmet, for the oppression was crushing him down. He could not make out what that frightful weight could be, nor did he care. He reached up with his knife, as he lay there, and determined to end things swiftly. He refused to be longer tortured.
With a swift, reckless motion he ripped asunder the breast of his diving-suit.
To his amazement, nothing happened. No water entered. Instead, came a breath of cold sweet air that literally brought life into his lungs!
Two minutes later he was sitting up, sobbing the good clean air into his body! He saw then what had happened—what that awful weight had been! It had been only the weight of his own body and equipment. Unknown to himself, he had emerged from the water into the dense thickness of the fog.
He had won clear!
CHAPTER XIII
PONTIFEX PLANS REVENGE
"Strike me blind," observed Bo's'n Joe gloomily, "if they ain't gone an' got poor Frenchy!"
No one else spoke for a bit. Mr. Leman spat over the rail and stared at the fog in the direction of the unseen Japanese ship. The Missus had gone to her cabin when the body was hauled aboard. Captain Pontifex stood looking down at the form, still incased in its diving-suit; and his pallid cavernous features were venomous with rage.