Pete's features were almost hidden by a mouth that stretched practically from ear to ear as he gave a prodigious grin.
"Do, sah? Be coloured gen'lman at Barbadoes, Massa Villiers. Buy top-hole swagger hotel an' get dollars from Yankee visitors. P'r'aps I buy a sail-boat and take people round de islands. If any of you gen'lmen come to Barbadoes, be sure to look up Massa Pete Johnson. He put you up free, gratis, and for nothin'."
"Then you're not sorry that Captain Abe booted you out of the Lucy M. Partington?" asked Bobby.
"No, sah." Pete evidently did not wish to reopen an unpleasant incident, for he turned somewhat abruptly to O'Loghlin. "Say, Massa," he asked anxiously, "you understan' motors. Will I be able to run a swagger car? One that licks creation for goin' tarnation quick?"
"If you handle the steering-wheel of a car as well as you do a frying-pan, you'll be a rattling good driver, Pete," replied O'Loghlin, pushing aside his empty plate with a satisfied sigh.
The salvage operation continued without a hitch in glorious weather and under ideal conditions. The divers' dread of sharks seemed to have been a needless one, for the noise of the motors and the activity of all hands had no doubt scared the tigers of the deep.
One day Villiers was at work below, when he noticed a gaudily-coloured fish dart out from behind a box, and graze his hand. The fish was but a small one, less than six inches in length, but its dorsal fins resembled trailing tendrils and its tail ended in two tapering points.
Hardly paying any attention to the creature, for fishes were continually swimming around the divers, Villiers began prising open the metal-bound box. Before he had completed his task his arm was throbbing frightfully, and his hand seemed to lose the power of gripping things.
He "stuck it" for another ten minutes, then signed to Swaine that he was finishing work. Before he reached dry ground he felt on the point of collapse, and when he did gain the beach he toppled inertly upon the sand, to the astonishment and alarm of Vivian and Merridew, who were standing by to assist the diving-party.
They divested him of his diving-suit. By this time his arm had swollen tremendously, and the flesh was turning a dull-grey colour.