Before I tumbled into bed that night we had settled upon the future
so far as our words to each other went; the bargain only needed the
ratification of Anson C. Doughty--and that was secured next morning. I
had expected that sleep would soothe my nerves and remove my ugly grouch
in the case of that gentleman. However, there must have been something
instinctive in my dislike for him; he looked me up and down and caught
my scowl.
“You seem to have picked out a pretty surly up-country steer, Vose!
However, put him to work if you like that kind!”
So to work I went.
I cleaned diving-suits and thus became familiar with the parts and the
mechanism. I soaked out mud-caked ropes, I tended lines and learned
signals, and was always busy with a hundred other odd jobs as a
satellite of Diver Vose. He used me well enough, though he was never as
warm toward me as he was at our first meeting.
After some weeks I lost my fear that I would be followed and taken back
to Levant. I was not sure whether I felt more relief than rancor. To
be considered as not worth chasing, to know they were saying “Good
riddance!” behind my back, gave me thoughts which hurt a certain kind of
pride.
I was afraid of the city and I went nowhere except to my work and to
my boarding-place. So there was an epoch in my life which was bare of
adventure until Diver Vose sent me down for the first time.
He had given me a fine course of sprouts previously, of course.
But in spite of all that the first sensations nigh paralyzed me.
I reached bottom and wallowed around without the least thought or
remembrance regarding what I had been told to do. A freight-train seemed
to be roaring around inside my helmet and I was gasping like a dying
skate-fish.
Then in scuffing around in a sort of panic, taking no care of what I
was about, I hooked my shoe onto something and began to yank and thresh
around in a perfect frenzy. The result was that I pulled the shoe off
and my lightened foot was snapped above my head in a finer spread-eagle
than any acrobatic dancer ever pulled off. To drag that foot down was
beyond my powers, and I tripped and went onto my back. Being up-ended is
a diver’s chief peril, because the air bellies up into the legs of the
dress and leaves scant supply in the helmet.
In that crisis there was one idea which stuck to me: I must get that
lost shoe!
And I did get it. I groped and rolled and struggled and pulled until I
did get it. A half-dozen times in my efforts I felt them trying to haul
me up. I suppose I must have given signals telling them to quit that.
I fought them as best I could, anyway, until I had recovered the shoe;
then I yanked for a lift and went up.
Captain Vose was standing in front of me with the helmet in his hands
when I had recovered my wits enough to notice anybody.
“Been dancing a jig?” he inquired, caustically.