I do remember this—and remember it all too well!—before we were in readiness for the test of the hose and our pump a small schooner came rolling up the coast and anchored well inside of us, even nearer the wreck than our lighter from which we had been operating.
This was no customs boat. Within a few hours we abroad the Zizania knew that Marcena Keedy was in command of the new arrival, and that he had brought two divers and was full of hope and curses and brag.
Where Keedy secured his men and his craft we did not know—for social calls were not exchanged between the two vessels. But a lot can be accomplished in a few weeks when a man has greed to prick him, a grudge to settle, and twenty thousand dollars to back him.
Capt. Rask Holstrom had been in the depths of despair before the arrival of Keedy; now he found a hole leading into the subcellar of his despair, and retreated still lower. He had no faith in my new contrivances. He wanted me to abandon work on such folderols and go down and stand over that treasure. He could not seem to see with my eyes. He knew that millions in gold were at the bottom of the sea—I had recovered a sample of it. He felt just as though it lay there unprotected, and that the first-comer would get it. As a submarine diver who had struggled against the difficulties of the situation, I was more serene. I didn’t know what sort of prodigies in the diving line Keedy had secured as my rivals, but I was not ready to admit to myself that they would succeed by ordinary means where I had failed after exerting every ounce of effort.
Using Captain Holstrom’s long telescope, I saw them going down. They went together. Evidently Keedy had concluded that if one diver had failed, two ought to be twice as good, and succeed.
Captain Holstrom remained at the end of his telescope until he acquired a permanent squint. We had hard work to get him to drop the glass long enough to eat. Day after day, as soon as it was light in the morning, he was in the wheel-house, balancing the glass across the window-sill, watching Keedy’s schooner. He evidently feared and expected to see uncounted wooden boxes of ingots come tumbling up over her rail.
My equipment had been almost ready when Keedy arrived, but now another consideration held me back. I did not propose to let the other crowd in on my methods if I could help it. No matter what Captain Holstrom and his associates thought of the feasibility of the scheme, I had a lot of confidence in it, and was not willing that a rival should know enough about it to copy any plans.
Therefore I set my crew at work building a wall of boards about the lighter, leaving only a door for my exit over the side. I wanted to conceal the pumping operations. As to the divers whom I should meet at the scene of the wreck, I trusted to other measures to conceal my system.
I was out on the lighter to superintend the building of the wall, and more especially to oversee the setting of the force-pump and its attachments. I did not like the looks of the sea on that last day of our work. It looked murky and slaty as the big rollers surged under us, and I remembered that it showed that same color on the day when my friendly undertow had helped me. I was tempted to go down and investigate, but I had seen the men from Keedy’s schooner go overboard, and I concluded to keep away from contact with them until I was ready for serious operations.
Inclosed in my wall on the lighter, I was busy about my own affairs, and did not peep to see what was happening in the neighborhood.