list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between

the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled,

and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't

any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose;

but afterwards I found two skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins,

where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck

and recognise it all, bit by bit; a place against the rail where I'd

been fond of smoking by starlight, and the corner where an old chap

from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we had aboard. A comfortable

couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now you couldn't have

got a meal for a baby crab off either of them.



"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I

spent the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went

below to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work

hunting, feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing

blue gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about,

a dab at my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect.

I kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and

picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think?

Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling for bones. We

had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knew just

where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box

one end an inch or more."



He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as

that! Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted

inside my helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting

confounded stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down

twenty-five minutes or more--and I thought this was good enough.

I went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up flush with

the deck, a thundering great crab gave a kind of hysterical jump

and went scuttling off sideways. Quite a start it gave me. I stood

up clear on deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let the air

accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind of whacking

from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar,

but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up.



"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood

a-quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd

seen young Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was

still calling him this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt

me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.

Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!

I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front

of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was

a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting

about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it

hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was

all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and



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