I lost no time getting another tackle to it, and rigged it to lift it end up, and turn it over, then the first fall would pull it out and clear. I was getting pretty well used to being below by this time, and the headache was lessening. I found that I could remain under fully half an hour now, and work most of that time.
The last time I went below I had a premonition that all was not as it should be down there, and I went along very carefully. I made my way into the ship's hull, and was just getting the new tackle set up taut and ready, when the whole ship heeled suddenly to port. The safe slewed sideways and slid down the now slanting deck, blocking the hole entirely across, but leaving my lines and tackle clear.
I signaled to come up at once. Then my line jerked, hauled me close up to the opening, and there I jammed, stuck so I could not get back. I signaled frantically for help, and they pulled me with all their might. But they might as well have tried to lift the wreck itself. I was caught.
During the next few minutes I thought a great deal. The horror of my situation dawned upon me. I was fast below there—not a chance for getting out. There seemed nothing to do, but wait placidly for the end.
The next few minutes were hours to me. I could signal with the line, but that was all. They knew I was alive, and they knew something must have happened by the heeling of the sunken wreck.
The blasting had probably blown away the sandy bottom under her, and she had simply cast over and slid the stuff to leeward.
There was plenty of room to take that safe out endways, but it was now so fixed that some one would have to slew it around before that could be done. My lamp was still burning, and the blackness lost some of its terrors in that pitiful light.
I was in the hull of a lost ship, and I felt that I was indeed a lost man. Memories came and went with lightning-like rapidity. I thought of Lucy Docking, and wondered how she would take my death. Then I began to feel the effects of the pressure, and my head grew flighty.
I dreamed of beautiful blue skies and green fields, the shore, the mountains; and all the time Lucy was with me, going from place to place. I was not unhappy. There was a feeling of contentment with the woman I had chosen, and it was all real, so real that I only awoke under the vicious pulling upon my life line by the men above.
Then the horror of my situation came back to me, and the roaring in my ears told me of my predicament. I gazed out of the front glass into the dark medium about me, the rays of the lamp making sharp outlines and shadows.