Haswell, with remarkable nerve, faced his end unflinchingly. It was wonderful to see him sitting there, unafraid, with his arm three times its natural size at the shoulder where the last bandage of Mitchell had been fastened.
"I reckon I'll last about an hour longer," he finally said. "It's—no—use." His strength was leaving him, and he spoke haltingly, in hardly more than a whisper.
They gave him more whisky, and waited. Then Williams took down his last words in reference to his family affairs, and Haswell laid himself down on a transom. Two hours later he was stone dead.
That was a beginning that would have shaken the nerve of many men. Mitchell had his partner sewn up in canvas, and they buried him far out at sea, rowing off in the small boat.
The next day Williams started down. He found the location of the strong room, and was careful to wear heavy gloves while working. Then he placed the charge.
The crack that followed was not loud—deep down as it was. A storm of bubbles arose to the surface, and the sea lifted a few inches just over the place where the gelatine exploded. Then Mitchell prepared to go down and examine the result.
The oily sea heaved and sank with the long swell, and there was nothing to indicate that there would be any trouble. Nothing could move the wreck. Mitchell went under at eleven that morning, and, after he had been down half an hour, Williams signaled him. He received no answer. With some anxiety, the big man started to haul line, when, to the horror of all, the two lines—hose and life line—came in easily without anything at their end.
The hose showed a clean cut well down near the helmet, and the life line showed a ragged cut or break which stranded it out a full foot. Mitchell was left below, cut off from us as clean as if he had been left upon the moon.
Williams strove with all haste to get into another suit, but it was a good ten minutes before he did so. He went down with a man of his outfit holding line for him, and came back in ten minutes with a white face and staring eyes.
"Whole side of the room fell on him," he said; "cut his hose and—and left him there. Give me a line, I'll get him out."