Chok-foo and Ram-stam obeyed.
The signal was repeated somewhat impatiently.
“Pump away, boys; for dear life—pump,” cried the little woman in desperate anxiety.
Perspiration rolled down the cheeks of Chok-foo and Ram-stam as they gasped for breath and turned the handles with all the strength they possessed.
“Pump—oh! Pump—for pity’s sake.”
She ended with a wild shriek, for at that moment the
waves were cleft alongside, and Rooney Machowl came up from the bottom, feet foremost, with a bounce that covered the sea with foam. He had literally been blown up from the bottom—his dress being filled with so much compressed air that he had become like a huge bladder, and despite all his weights, he rolled helplessly on the surface in vain attempts to get his head up and his feet down.
Of course his distracted wife hauled in on the life-line with all her might, and Chok-foo and Ram-stam, forsaking the pump, lent their aid and soon hauled the luckless diver into the boat, when his first act was to deal the Chinamen a cuff each that sent one into the stern-sheets on his nose, and the other into the bow on his back. Immediately thereafter he fell down as if senseless, and Molly, with trembling hands, unscrewed the bull’s-eye.
Her horror may be imagined when she beheld the countenance of her husband as pale as death, while blood flowed copiously from his mouth, ears, and nostrils.