"You see that fella white man? Mebbe he wants to go below—good; you give him that other suit. Mebbe he raises hell or touches the pump; you knock seven bells out of him. Otherwise no order. You savee?"
Buttermilk saveed with a vacant grin.
There hung for a moment after the helmet had been locked a singled-eyed and monstrous red ghoul of the sea that presently lowered itself and sank....
Wetherbee landed easily on the boat deck of the Fernshawe well away aft. It was hardly bright enough as yet above him, and he had to feel his path a foot at a time in somber green twilight. Quick fishes steered to and fro about him, silent and curious witnesses of this invasion. He gave no heed, he had no care of sharks or diamond fish or any possible danger, too intent on his errand, too elate and confident.
Balancing on his hands like an acrobat, he crawled over the edge, down to the main deck, and began to explore forward.
In one hand he held a short and heavy steel crowbar, with a fine ground tip. In the other he drew the coils of his life line and air tube. They lengthened after him as he entered by the main companion, passed the door to the saloon, and up a long, dark passage to a thwartship corridor. There, as he had known from a vague and general familiarity with its plan, was the door to the steamer's strong room. The lock proved a trifle in the nip of his powerful jimmy....
When he groped out into the passage, twenty minutes later, he carried slung to his belt, a sagging canvas bag.
It seemed to him that the ship must have moved in the interval of his search. Some shifting of cargo or fracture of the coral supports had tilted her sharply by the stern. He walked down a noticeable slope, and halfway he met a dead man, sliding on an upward current.
The stranger bobbed into him and went asprawl like a clumsy and apologetic passer-by. His sightless eyes peered into Wetherbee's with mild reproach. Wetherbee thrust him off, and he went bowing and spinning gravely on his course.