Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters

by R. M. Ballantyne

“How did it happen?” she asked, at the close of a torrent of condolence.

“Indeed I don’t know,” replied Aileen, looking up with a smile as she brushed away the two tears which the mention of their distress had forced into her eyes. “Papa says it was owing to the mismanagement of a head clerk and the dishonesty of a foreign agent, but whatever the cause, the fact is that we are ruined. Of course that means, I suppose, that we shall have no more than enough to procure the bare necessaries of life, and shall now, alas! Know experimentally what it is to be poor.”

Miss Pritty, when in possession of “enough to procure the bare necessaries of life,” had been wont to consider herself rich, but her powers of sympathy were great. She scorned petty details, and poured herself out on her poor friend as a true comforter—counselled resignation as a matter of course, but suggested such a series of bright impossibilities for the future as caused Aileen to laugh, despite her grief.

In the midst of one of these bursts of hilarity Mr Hazlit entered the room. The sound seemed to grate on his feelings, for he frowned as he walked, in an absent mood, up to a glass case full of gaudy birds, and turned his back to it under the impression, apparently, that it was a fire.

“Aileen,” he said, jingling some loose coin in his pocket with one hand, while with the other he twisted the links of a massive gold chain, “your mirth is ill-timed. I am sorry, Miss Pritty, to have to announce to you, so soon after your arrival, that I am a beggar.”

As he spoke he drew himself up to his full height, and looked, on the whole, like an over-fed, highly ornamented, and well-to-do beggar.

“Yes,” he said, repeating the word with emphasis as if he were rather proud of it, “a beggar. I have not a possession in the world save the clothes on my back, which common decency demands that my creditors should allow to remain there. Now, I have all my life been a man of action, promptitude, decision. We return to England immediately—I do not mean before luncheon, but as soon as the vessel in which I have taken our passage is ready for sea, which will probably be in a few days. I am sorry, Miss Pritty, that I have put you to so much unnecessary trouble, but of course I could not foresee what was impending. All I can do now is to thank you, and pay your passage back in the same vessel with ourselves if you are disposed to go. That vessel, I may tell you, has been selected by me with strict regard to my altered position. It is a very small one, a mere schooner, in which there are no luxuries though enough of necessaries. You will therefore, my child, prepare for departure without delay.”

In accordance with this decision Mr and Miss Hazlit and Miss Pritty found themselves not long afterwards on board the Fairy Queen as the only passengers, and, in process of time, were conveyed by winds and currents to the neighbourhood of the island of Borneo, where we will leave them while we proceed onward to the island of Ceylon. Time and distance are a hindrance to most people. They are fortunately nothing whatever in the way of writers and readers!

Here a strange scene presents itself; numerous pearl-divers are at work—most of them native, some European. But with these we have nothing particular to do, except in so far as they engage the attention of a certain man in a small boat, whose movements we will watch. The man had been rowed to the scene of action by two Malays from a large junk, or Chinese vessel, which lay in the offing. He was himself a Malay—tall, dark, stern, handsome, and of very powerful build. The rowers were perfectly silent and observant of his orders, which were more frequently conveyed by a glance or a nod than by words.

Threading his way among the boats of the divers, the Malay skipper, for such he seemed, signed to the rowers to stop, and directed his attention specially to one boat. In truth this boat seemed worthy of attention because of the energy of the men on board of it. A diver had just leaped from its side into the sea. He was a stalwart man of colour, quite naked, and aided his descent by means of a large stone attached to each of the sandals which he wore. These sandals, on his desiring to return to the surface, could be thrown off, being recoverable by means of cords fastened to them. Just as he went down another naked diver came up from the bottom, and was assisted into the boat. A little blood trickled from his nose and ears, and he appeared altogether much exhausted. No wonder. He had not indeed remained down at any time more than a minute and a half, but he had dived nearly fifty times that day, and sent up a basket containing a hundred pearl oysters each time.