Joe took in a long breath—the longest, he felt, he had ever taken. Then he made his deep dive.
CHAPTER XXIII
BROUGHT TO LIFE
Down through the limpid depths of the great reservoir of water went Joe Strong. He was swimming toward the bottom as fast as he could go, for he wanted to get there quickly and begin the work of rescue, and he knew every second counted.
He had his eyes open, of course, and he was glad the sun was shining brightly overhead, so he could have light to work by. In forty feet of water not much sunlight penetrates, even on a bright day, but Joe had been told that the diver had a small electric light with him, and this, perhaps, would still be glowing. The current was turned on, that Joe knew, but the lamp might have been broken in the accident that had happened.
Down, down, down went the young diver—a veritable "boy fish" now if ever there was such a thing. Joe had a glimpse of the air hose, like some long, thin water snake, beside him. It went down into the depths, as did the life-line and the thicker hoisting rope.
"And where they end—there's the diver," reasoned Joe. He used the air hose as a guide and swam as near to it as he could. In a few seconds he found himself nearing the bottom of the reservoir. It was of natural formation, for the dam had been built across a narrow valley, and when the water came in, it covered from view the site of a small forest, much of which had been cleared away, leaving only stumps and rocks.
Suddenly, before Joe's eyes, loomed a strange shape. It was almost like that of some deep-sea monster, with great, round, staring, glassy eyes, and as Joe turned a somersault and landed on his feet he stood beside the imprisoned diver. The latter was aware of something unusual going on, and turned to stare at Joe through the glass of his helmet. Joe could not see the man's face in that light, but he knew it must show deadly fear.
In a trice Joe decided what he must do. It was not easy to stay beneath the water, for his natural buoyancy had a tendency to force him up, and his first act, after landing and feeling himself shooting back toward the surface, was to reach out and grasp the heavy rope that he knew was fastened about the diver's waist. There could be no harm to the diver in this, Joe reasoned, since the men up above were putting a much greater strain on the hempen cable. And by holding thus to the rope Joe prevented himself from going up.
Though the diver must have been greatly astonished to see a young man in a pair of old trousers and a ragged shirt suddenly appear beside him in the reservoir, Tom Rand could show nothing of what he felt. Talking was out of the question.