He felt smaller and less buoyant when he got up, his breath was hard to get, and he grew uncomfortably hot. Then it flashed upon him with a shock of unnerving fear that his air-pipe was foul, and for a moment he grappled sternly with his dismay. There was no time to lose, but he must keep his head. Passing his hand over the canvas dress, which felt ominously slack, he fumbled at the lamp. As he did so a wavering beam of light shot out, shining uncertainly through the water; and he supposed that in falling he must have broken the circuit by pressing the switch. Lifting the lamp, he saw that the tube was bent sharply round a ragged timber, and while his heart throbbed painfully and his breath grew labored, he moved back and reached for it; but he found his hands nerveless and his legs unsteady, and when he stooped to loose the line his head reeled and he pitched forward across the timber, grasping the line as he fell.
CHAPTER XVIII—BOGUS GOLD
Cold as it was, Jimmy lay for a long time on the sloop’s deck when he had been stripped of the diving gear. How he had crawled out of the hole and climbed the ladder was not clear to him; he thought that he must have untangled the line as he fell and have been driven forward by an overpowering longing for the upper air.
He found some trouble in explaining to Moran what had happened, for he felt limp and shaky yet. And he shuddered at the thought of going down again.
“When we once get the box out of the hold,” he said, “there should be no trouble in swinging it on board.”
Moran smoked out a pipe before he took his turn. When the copper helmet disappeared, Jimmy got a firm grip on the signal line; and while he waited he looked about.
The days were rapidly shortening, and the light was growing dim. The horizon seemed to be creeping in on them, obscured by smoky fog, which stirred and wreathed about as the wind sprang up. Small ripples were splashing round the sloop, and the swell was steeper.
“I hope Hank will manage to sling that box,” Jimmy said to Bethune, who nodded as he steadily turned the pump.
“We may get another turn or two, but that will be all. There’s a breeze behind the heave that’s working in.”
Neither of them said anything further, but waited with what patience they could summon until Moran came up.