The Bulldog had settled evenly upon her keel, but as she was sharp, she had listed until her masts were leaning well to starboard, dipping her yardarms deep in the clear water. She was submerged as far up as her topsail yards.
The captain of the wrecker was a Conch. His mate was a giant negro of the Keys; young, powerful, and the best diver on the Florida Reef. His chest measured forty-eight inches in circumference over his lean pectoral muscles, and he often bent iron bars of one-half inch to show the set of his vise-like grip. He was almost black, with a sinister-looking leer upon his broad face, his eyes red and watery like most of the divers of the Bank. He could remain under four fathoms for at least three and a half minutes, and work with amazing force, and continue this terrific strain for six hours on a stretch, with but five minutes between dives. Half fish or alligator, and half human, he looked as he lounged naked in the hot sunshine upon the sloop's forecastle, his skin hard and callous as leather from long exposure to a tropic sun and salt water. He was ready for the work ahead, for it had been rumoured that the Bulldog had not less than fifty thousand dollars in silver aboard her. She was known to have been chartered by agents of the Venezuelan revolutionists, and to have arms and money aboard in abundance for their relief.
The day was well advanced when the spars of the brig showed above the sea. The sky was cloudless, and the little air there was stirring scarcely rippled the ocean; the swell rolling with that long, undulating sweep and peculiar slowness which characterizes calm weather in the Gulf Stream.
Far away the "Isaacs" showed above the horizon, and just the slightest glint of white told of the nearest cay miles away on the Great Bank. To the westward it was a trifle more than sixty miles to Florida Cape across the channel, with the deep ocean current sweeping to the northward between. The steady set of the Stream brought the wreckers rapidly nearer the brig in spite of the calm, and they let go their first anchor about fifty fathoms due south, and veered the cable to let the sloop drift slowly down upon the wreck. Then, lowering all canvas, they got out their kedges and moored the sloop just over the port rail of the Bulldog which could be distinctly seen about ten feet below the surface of the sea.
Three of the crew, all experienced divers, made ready while the mate went slowly to the rail and gazed fixedly down into the clear water. In calm weather the bottom on the Bank can be seen distinctly in five fathoms, and often at much greater depth. The weather was ideal now, and no one thought it necessary to use the "water-glass," the glass-bottomed bucket into which the diver usually sticks his head and gazes into the depths before making his plunge.
"I reckon ye might as well make a try," said the captain, coming to the mate's side. "Start here an' let the drift o' the current take ye th' whole length." And as he spoke he hove a life-line overboard for the men to grasp should the stream carry them too far. Coming to the surface they would be tired and not want to swim back. A man stood by to haul in and save the diver the exertion.
The mate raised his eyes. He looked over the smooth sea and tilted his nose into the air, sniffing the gentle breeze.
"It might be a wery good day, Cap, but I sho' smells shurk. I ain't much perticular about this smooth weather. It nearly always brings 'em along 'bout dis time o' year. De season am mighty nigh done on de Bank. Yo' knows dey is mighty peart when dey gits plentiful."
"Are you feared?" asked the captain, looking at him scornfully.