“Come, cut it short and look alive,” said Maxwell gruffly, as he stood up to permit of a stout rope being fastened to his waist.
“You shut up!” retorted Baldwin.
Having exchanged these little civilities the two divers moved to the side of the barge—Maxwell with a slow ponderous tread.
A short iron ladder dipped from the gunwale of the barge a few feet down into the sea. The diver stepped upon this, turning with his face inwards, descended knee-deep into the water, and then stopped. Baldwin handed him the blasting-charge. At the same moment one of the supernumeraries advanced with the front-glass or bull’s-eye in his hand, and the men at the pumps gave a turn or two to see that all was working well.
“All right?” demanded the supernumerary.
“Right,” responded Maxwell, in a voice which issued sepulchrally from the iron globe.
There are three round windows fitted with thick plate-glass in the helmets to which we refer. The front one is made to screw off and on, and the fixing of this is always the last operation in completing a diver’s toilet.
“Pump away,” said the man, holding the round glass in front of Maxwell’s nose, and looking over his shoulder to see that the order was obeyed. The glass was screwed on, and the man finished off by gravely patting Maxwell in an affectionate manner on the head.
“Why does he pat him so?” asked Edgar, with a laugh at the apparent tenderness of the act.
“It’s a tinder farewell, I suppose,” murmured Rooney, “in case he niver comes up again.”