“Let him go, boys—gently, or he’ll break everything. A dip’ll do him no harm,” cried Baldwin to the alarmed assistants.
The men let the life-line and air-tube slip, until the rushing descent was somewhat abated, and then, checking the involuntary diver, they hauled him slowly to the surface, where his arms and open palms went swaying wildly round until they came in contact with the ladder, on which they fastened with a grip that was sufficient to have squeezed the life out of a gorilla.
In a few seconds he ascended a step, and his head emerged, then another step, and Baldwin was able to unscrew the glass.
The first word that the poor man uttered through his porthole was “Och!” the next, “Musha!”
A burst of laughter from his friends above somewhat reassured him, and again the tinge of contempt in Maxwell’s voice reinfused courage and desperate resolve.
“Why, man, what was your haste?” said Baldwin.
“Sure the rounds o’ yer ladder was slippy,” answered Rooney, with some indignation. “Didn’t ye see, I lost me howld? Come, putt on the glass an’ I’ll try again. Never say die was a motto of me owld father, an’ it was the only legacy he left me.—I’m ready, sur.”
It is right here to remark that something of the pupil’s return of courage and resolution was due to his quick perception. He had time to reflect that he really had been at, or near, the bottom of the sea—at all events over head and ears in water—for several minutes without being drowned, even without being moistened, and his faith in the diving-dress, though still weak, had dawned sufficiently to assert itself as a power.
“Ha! My lad, you’ll do. You’ll make a diver yet,” said Baldwin, when about to readjust the glass. “I forgot to tell you that when your breath clouds the front-glass, you’ve only got to bend your head down, and wipe it off with your night-cap. Now, then, down you go once more.”
This time the pat on the head was followed by a descending motion. The mailed figure was feeling with its right foot for the next round of the ladder. Then slowly—very slowly—the left foot was let down, while the two hands held on with a tenacity that caused all the muscles and sinews to stand out rigidly. Then one hand was loosened, and caught nervously at a lower round—then the other hand followed, and thus by degrees the pupil went under the surface, when his helmet appeared like a large round ball of light enveloped in the milky-way of air-bubbles that rose from it.