"What on earth do you want down there?"
"Only a scrap of paper, perhaps, Derrick."
"Then you ain't like to find it, you ain't."
"I should like to see the deck my father stood on last."
"I understand that, I does. Come, then. I wonders as he went to sea in that craft, for last time she left Falmouth the rats rushed out of her in thousands; and they never does that for nothin'. But as for finding paper here, you'll be like them as mistook the mild reflex of the lunar horb for a remarkably fine Stilton. But here we goes; and now take care on yourself."
With a thrill of awe and horror, oddly not unmingled with delight and a sense of novelty, Arthur took his place beside Derrick on the seat that was placed across the bell, which at once began to descend. Light was admitted by convex lenses, through which were seen the long trailing weeds, the creeping things of ocean, and now and then the sea-green faces of the blackening dead!
They passed downward into the water, which surged against the sides of the bell, and rippled over the lenses till they were close to the bulged wreck. Her starboard bow was completely smashed upon the rocks; the cargo had been washed out, and was still oozing forth by degrees. Already barnacles and weeds were growing on it, and dreary, dreary and desolate looked that shattered hull at the bottom of the sea; and Arthur surveyed it with tears of the keenest grief.
"Suppose a shark stuck its nose into the bell?" said Polkinghorne.
"I don't care if one did," said Arthur.
"A dead body? and, by Jove, here's one coming in grim earnest. On his face, it's a man. Women allus floats on their backs; how's that, Muster Lydiard?"