“This,” he said, “is the foundation of my diving suit, which will be complete when I have covered it with a double thickness of well-oiled canvas. The framework of thin rod will keep the water pressure off my body; the battens will support the outer covering of canvas and prevent it from bursting; and you will see that by the arrangement which I have adopted I secure ample flexibility for my purpose. Then, as soon as we arrive at our destination, I intend to have one of the screw deck-lights bodily removed and temporarily fixed in my helmet, which will enable me to see what I am doing when under water. Of course I shall need weights to hold me down; and my air will come down to me through the rubber deck hose, one end of which will be let into the back of my helmet, while the other will be firmly secured to some portion of the schooner where it will be out of the way. Of course it will be a very rough-and-ready, makeshift affair, but I believe it will prove fairly efficient for the purpose.”
Cunningham’s next business was to cut out and have sewn together for himself a single garment which combined the functions of stockings, trousers, and shirt. This was made of a double thickness of stout canvas, each thickness being well coated on both sides with two coats of boiled oil. It was a weird-looking garment, as it was intended to fit on outside the armour arrangement which he called his diving suit; but it was merely intended to exclude the water, and when it was finished and fitted I saw that it would serve its purpose perfectly well, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not be able to work in it at the bottom of the sea perfectly well. And he completed the whole affair by firmly attaching one end of the rubber hose pipe to the back of his helmet.
We made Cape Virgins on the day and at the hour, and almost the minute, which I had predicted, to the intense admiration and delight of the skipper; and reached Punta Arenas, in the Strait of Magellan, on the afternoon of the same day. Here we came to an anchor, and Brown, Cunningham, and I went ashore, the skipper’s business being to arrange for the refilling of our water tanks and the supply of a quantity of fresh meat, Cunningham’s just to take a look round and stretch his long legs a bit, and mine to report the seizure of the Zenobia by Bainbridge and the crew, and to post to the owners a letter upon the same subject which I had prepared at my leisure. Our first enquiry was as to whether the Kingfisher had passed, and Brown’s delight was great when he learned that thus far nothing had been seen of her.
We left Punta Arenas shortly after noon on the day following that of our arrival, still with no sign of the Kingfisher, and, being lucky enough to get a fine little slant of wind, safely accomplished the dangerous passage and entered the Pacific on the evening of the succeeding day. The slant of wind held long enough to enable us to gain an offing of a trifle over a hundred miles, and then it died away and left us becalmed and rolling gunwale under on the long Pacific swell.
Yes, there could be no doubt that the Martha Brown knew how to roll; it was my first experience of her in a flat calm and a heavy swell, and had we not hastily rigged rolling tackles I verily believe that she would have rolled the masts out of her. Even the skipper, proud as he was of her, felt obliged to make some sort of apology for her, which he wound up by saying: “But some day a smarty’ll come along and invent some way of turnin’ this here rollin’ to account as a means of propulsion, and then you’ll see that builders’ll fashion all ships upon the model of the Marthy.”
“Eh? What’s that? Just say that again, Captain,” remarked Cunningham, who, it being the second dog-watch, happened to be on deck.
The skipper said it again.
“Y–e–es,” agreed Cunningham, thoughtfully, “y–e–es, I shouldn’t wonder;” and he walked away contemplatively.
“Now I wouldn’t be so very powerful surprised if he was to turn out to be the smarty that I just mentioned,” observed the skipper, jerking his thumb toward where Cunningham stood gazing abstractedly over the taffrail, with his feet wide apart and his hands locked behind him, balancing himself to the violent movements of the little vessel.
“Possibly,” I agreed. “Cunningham is of a very inventive turn of mind. But to convert the rolling motion of a ship into a forward movement is a pretty tall order, and would probably require exceedingly complicated machinery. The idea is by no means new, and I believe several inventors have had a turn at it; but nothing practical seems to have come of it as yet.”