“Ay, whether in the calm or in the storm,” responded Joe.
“Yes; it was under a very different aspect I saw this place last,” returned Edgar. “Yonder is the cliff now coming into view, where the vessel we are in search of went down.”
“An ugly place,” remarked Joe, who was steering the boat. “Come boys, give way. The morning’s gittin’ on, an’ we must set to work as soon as ever we can. Time an’ tide, you know, etcetera.”
Rooney, Maxwell, Chok-foo, and Ram-stam, who were rowing, bent to their work with a will, but the heavy boat did not respond heartily, being weighted with a large amount of diving gear. Just then a light breeze arose, and the boat, obedient to the higher power, bent over and rippled swiftly on.
The only other individual on board was a Malay—the owner of the boat. He sat on the extreme end of the bow looking with a vacant gaze at the island. He was a man of large size and forbidding, though well-formed, features, and was clothed in a costume, half European half Oriental, which gave little clew to the nature of his profession—except that it savoured a good deal of the sea. His name, Dwarro, was, like his person, nondescript. Probably it was a corruption of his eastern cognomen. At all events it suffered further corruption from his companions in the boat, for Baldwin and Maxwell called him Dworro, while Rooney Machowl named him Dwarry. This diversity of pronunciation, however, seemed a matter of no consequence to the stolid boatman, who, when directly addressed, answered to any name that people chose to give him. He was taciturn—never spoke save when spoken to; and at such times used English so broken that it was difficult to put it together so as to make sense. He was there only in capacity of owner and guardian of the boat. Those who hired it would gladly have dispensed with his services, but he would not let them have it without taking himself into the bargain.
Having reached the scene of the wreck of the Warrior, the party at once proceeded to sound and drag for it, and soon discovered its position, for it had not shifted much after slipping off the ledge, where it had met its doom on the night of the storm. Its depth under the surface was exactly twenty-three fathoms, or 138 feet.
“It will try our metal,” observed Baldwin, “for the greatest depth that the Admiralty allow their divers to go down is twenty fathom.”
“What o’ that?” growled Maxwell, “I’ve worked myself many a time in twenty-three fathom water, an’ll do it again any day. We don’t need to mind what the Admiralty says. The submarine engineers of London tell us they limit a man to twenty-five fathom, an’ they ought to know what’s possible if any one should.”
“That’s true, David,” remarked Rooney, as he filled his pipe, “but I’ve heard of a man goin’ down twinty-eight fathom, an’ comin’ up alive.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Berrington, “I have heard of one man who descended to thirty-four fathom, at which depth he must have sustained a pressure of 88 and a half pounds on every square inch of his body—and he came up alive, but his case is an exception. It was fool-hardy, and he could do no effective work at such a depth. However, here we are, and here we must go to work with a will, whatever the depth be. You and I, Joe, shall descend first. The others will look after us. I’ll put on a Siebe and Gorman dress. You will don one of Heinke and Davis, and we’ll take down with us one of Denayrouze’s lamps, reserving Siebe’s electric light for a future occasion.”