THE old Pacific was in her usual welter next morning.
The big seas were rolling up from the equator, and we could hear them
booming in on the coast-line.
As I look back on that nightmare off the bars of San Apusa I think the
day when I went down with the anchor was the calmest day of our stay.
With the everlasting thrust of the trades behind them the billows
rolled, rolled, rolled, rolled--seethed and surged--giant green soldiers
with the white plumes, charging that sandy shore. I got to feel after a
time that they were soldiers in real earnest, and that they were after
me--poor little midget, who was trying to accomplish the impossible.
At breakfast Mr. Shank ventured to remark politely and somewhat
nervously that he was supposing I would not try to go down that day.
And I told Mr. Shank rather brusquely that of course I should go down,
and added that if we were to wait for smooth water in soundings on the
lee shore of the Pacific Ocean in the season of the trades, we should
have brought plenty of knitting-work and novels.
Captain Holstrom, from the head of the table, smiled and winked at me
with the most cordial expression I had ever seen on his face. I decided
that one of my partners was regarding me in a more amiable frame of
mind than he had before I had made that little speech to him. Mr. Keedy
scowled at me, and I was glad of that mark of his continued disesteem.
It occurred to me that perhaps I was weaning the captain from Keedy, for
Holstrom snapped his friend up rather short two or three times during
the meal.
I went down that day with more weights. The tug of those rollers inshore
was tremendous for a buoyant man, even in the comparative calm of the
previous day. I realized what I would meet up with this day, and I was
not disappointed in my reckoning.
I was tumbled from hummock to hummock of the submarine sand-bars. I was
knocked down and then was stood up once more. Sometimes I was lifted off
my feet, and then I was rolled and pressed down and pinned to the sand
till it seemed that I would never get on my feet again. Part of the
time I was thrust ahead as if the Pacific were trying to make me walk
Spanish--and then I was yanked backward on all-fours like a big crab.
I knew a whole lot about undertows, and I realized that I was having an
experience with a particularly crazy one.
Men who have observed and studied think they have a pretty good line on
the notions and the moods of the sea--but take it from me as a submarine
diver, they haven’t. If one is standing on a rock and looking out on
it, or sailing across it in a safe boat, the ocean becomes a matter of
“beautiful surf,” or an expanse more or less hubbly with waves.
But get down into it--get down deep where it can play with you,
twirl you, toss you, suck your breath, provided it can throttle your
air-hose--where it can work all its schemes and its spite. You will find
out that the ocean has a new trick for every day.
There are beaches where persons have bathed in safety for years. Then
all at once some day a shrieking man or woman is seized, as though
by some hidden monster, and is dragged off to death. That mighty and
erratic force is called an undertow. It is now here, now there. It is
born out of diverted currents, checked tide rips. It sneaks up bays,
seeking prey; it roams along open Peaches. I know a lot more about
undertows, but that’s all for now.
I was in one that day off San Apusa. Wind, tide, a current wandering
off its course--one of the currents that is uncharted and which is known
only by some diver who meets it on its wanderings below the surface, had
combined, and had come to play in the vicinity of the wreck of the old
_Golden Gate_.
I struggled on toward that wreck. Say, I met an old friend of mine. It
was the mushroom anchor, and it was doing a sort of jig on top of a sand
ridge when I first saw it. Evidently it had been lonesome during the
night, and it had come to meet me. It was at least one hundred feet on
the sea side of the wreck--and I had left it with fluke buried close
to the ribs. If that undertow had dug up that anchor it might be doing
other things. That thought came to me like a flash of hope. There’s no
telling what an undertow will do when it gets to prancing, you know!
I unlashed the crowbar from the anchor stock and tumbled on over the
ridges. I found myself in an opaque yellow light instead of in the green
radiance I had found on my other two trips, and I knew that the sand was
in motion inshore. When I came to the wreckage of the steamer I did not
know my way about. The undertow had been dragging away the packing of
sand here and there. More bulk of the débris was displayed, so far as I
could judge by touch and by what I could see in the dim light. I groped
my way along to the great ribs which showed above water, in order to get
my bearing. It was a fight to get there. I was thrashed about and tossed
and slatted. I wasn’t exactly sure when I did get there, for other
parts of’ the wreck had been uncovered so much that one could easily be
deceived in water in which boiled so much sand that it was like working
in soup.
However, I toiled back after I reckoned I had located the marker.
Yes, the old Pacific had truly had a change of heart since the day
before. The unseen fingers of that freakish undertow had been at
work--they were still at work. They were scooping out sand instead of
piling it in. I can best describe the appearance of things by saying
that there was a smother of sand in the swirling water. Now and then the
water cleared when the undertow let go its tuggings for a moment, and I
could see parts of the steamer which formerly had been hidden from me.
When I had counted the paces that should bring me in the neighborhood
of the treasure, I set my crowbar into the sand with all the strength
I could muster, and twisted it around and around in order to loosen the
stuff. It was wonderful how quickly the water dragged away what I set
free from that pack.
A bottle came bouncing up out of the hole. I dislodged pieces of broken
crockery. Ingot Ike had said that the treasure had been stored in
a compartment of the ship near the pantry. The sight of that jetsam
encouraged me. I stabbed with all my might, drove the crowbar in again
and again, struggled to hold myself on bottom, and muttered appeals to
that undertow in my frenzy of toil. I do not know how long I worked. I
do know that all my sensations informed me that I was remaining beyond
my limit of endurance. But the conviction came to me that this was not a
chance to be neglected. I was in a fever of hope. I wanted to show that
coward of a Marcena Keedy that a strong man could call the bluff of a
loafer’s sneers. I wanted to convince Capt. Rask Holstrom that he had
not picked out a piker, and perhaps I wanted a girl to give me the smile
which success ought to win.
Well--and here’s to the point!--all at once, when I was near fainting,
my crowbar struck something which was not bottles or crockery. I managed
at last to get the point of the bar under the object. I could not see
what it was. I only knew, as I worked the bar, edging it around the
thing to dislodge the sand, that the object was oblong and had corners.
My buoyancy and the swing of the rolling sea would not allow me to pry
with any great force. I could only pick at the sand and coax the
box out. In the end I had it where I could get my fingers under the
edges--and there’s one thing a diver can do: he can lift with the
strength of a giant, the air in his dress assisting him.
Yes, it _was_ a box, so I found when I had it out. It was a heavy box
even when lifted there under the sea. It was a small box, and there
could be only one reason for such a small box being so heavy--it was one
of the bullion boxes. Of that fact I was convinced.
I carried several small chains at my belt--my lashings in case of need.
I circled the box with chains, and secured it to my body as best I
could, then clutched my arm about it for greater safety. As I worked
I grew more excited--I had drawn first blood in my duel with the old
Pacific. Excitedly I pulled the line to send my signal to the lighter,
asking for help on the return. They told me afterward that I gave the
emergency signal. Perhaps I did. They had been waiting for a signal for
so long that they were in a state of panic. They feared that I had been
drowned, for I had been down for horns. When they got my double tug, so
they told me later, Number-two Jones gave a yell, called every man
on the lighter to the rope, and proceeded to give me a run home in
emergency time.
The first yank took me off my feet. Overballasted by the box of gold,
I tipped head down, and butted the summit of the first hummock of
sand with my helmet. My neck was snapped to one side and my head got a
tremendous rap against the side of the helmet. I did not strike ground
again until I reached the next ridge. I struck that and bounced, and I
think I took a recess on breathing right then and there. I have not much
recollection of the rest of that three hundred feet of rush back to the
lighter. I know I hit a good many hummocks, and I must have passed away
into dreamy unconsciousness when the drag upward through the water to
the rail of the lighter began.
They told me that when I came over the rail I was bent double, and it
was some time before they saw that I had something tucked in my arms.
I heard somebody shout, “Oh, God, this man is dead!” But I was just
getting my wits back then. I opened my eyes. Two of the crew were
holding me up, and Shank had my helmet off. He yelled like a maniac:
“I’m wrong! He ain’t!”
“I’m mighty glad you’re wrong, Shank,” I told him. My voice was pretty
feeble, but the memory of that box came back to me, and my thoughts were
dancing even if I couldn’t dance with my body just then.
I tried to look around after that box, but I lost interest in it the
next instant. It’s pretty hard work for me to tell you what happened,
and tell it in a matter-of-fact way, as I’m trying to tell the rest of
this yam. When I looked around I saw Kama Holstrom on her knees a little
way from me, her face as pale as the white foam on the waves, her eyes
wide open. I think her ears had been closed by horror when Shank had let
out his first yell.
“You’re alive!” she cried. And the next instant I was very much alive,
for she leaped up and ran to me, and threw her arms around my neck and
kissed me squarely on the mouth. Then her face was no longer white. It
flamed.
“I didn’t mean to--I am sorry--it was a mistake!” she gasped, and she
broke out and cried like a baby. But I caught her hand before she could
get out of reach of me, and pulled it to me and kissed it.
“Ah, if I _had_ been dead you would have waked me up,” I told her.
“I’ve a blamed good mind to kiss you myself!” roared old Holstrom from
somewhere behind me. Then he let out a whoop and came and capered in
front of me.
“You’ve brought up twenty thousand dollars’ worth of gold!” he informed
me. “Five ingots, with the assay mark on ’em, and each worth four
thousand dollars. That’s the kind of a diver you are, Sidney! All
together, men! Three cheers for the greatest sea diver that ever wore
lead shoes!” And the men gave the cheers while he pounded his fists on
my back.
I got a view of Marcena Keedy when I turned my head around. Mr. Keedy
was not showing any interest in my condition--not he. He was sitting on
deck with the open box hugged between his knees, and he was feeling over
those bars of gold like a lover fondling his lady’s cheek.
“I can’t say I’m stuck on the style of that critter,” mumbled Shank in
my ear. “He yanked that box away from you before we had fairly swung you
inboard and before anybody knew you was alive. He pried it open, and has
set there making love to it ever since.”
Old Ike was squatting in front of Keedy on his haunches, and was
drooling like a hound watching a butcher.
“It’s there! I’ve always said it was there. It’s there all bright and
shining. They all have hooted at me because I have said it was there.
Now what do you think?”
“Nobody has been a game sport in this thing except you and me,” said
Keedy, sticking an ingot up under Ike’s nose. “Nobody would back your
hand till I came along. I’ve had to talk everybody over before anybody
would do anything. I know how to play a hand with a buried card in it.
I’ve played that hand to the limit, and now see what has happened. When
you fellows are passing cheers around you’d better hooray for the man
who has turned the trick--for the man who kept at it till he got you
down here.”
He gave me a nasty side-glance and snuggled the box under his legs just
as though he had recovered property which belonged to him.
“Where there’s one there’s the rest of ’em, eh, Sidney? You have found
the nest of the beauties, eh? Well, do we get another nice little box
to-day? We may as well open the game with forty thousand while we’re
about it.”
Shank was leaning close to me, unscrewing the wing nuts between the
breastplate and my collar-band. He began to swear very soulfully in
an undertone, and he kept on swearing when he got a look from me that
indorsed all his sentiments in regard to Mr. Keedy.
“There are three millions down there--and twenty thousand is only a
flea-bite,” declared the callous knave. I don’t believe he noticed that
I was half dead when I was pulled up--or cared a rap about my condition,
anyway. “I’m strong for bulling the game when it’s coming your way. What
do you say, Sidney, if we make the first day’s ante forty thousand?”
“Captain Holstrom,” I said, “a man who has been banging the soul out of
himself for five hours in a divingsuit is in no condition to talk to a
skunk like that over there. Can’t you say something?”
I must confess that the captain did rise nobly to the occasion. A
tugboat man who has spent most of his life fighting for berths in the
maze of shipping along the San Francisco water-front needs considerable
hot language in his business, and Captain Holstrom was in good practice.
“So I’ve got the two partners against me now, have I?” snarled Keedy.
“I had to fight to get the two of you into the proposition, and now
that you’re making good I’ve got to fight both of you to keep the
thing going, have I? Thanks for the hint as to how you propose to hold
cards--but I serve notice right now that you can’t whipsaw me between
you.”
He looked as evil as a door-tender in Tophet, but his threats did not
trouble me.
That evening something happened that indicated further cleavage of
associations on board the _Zizania_, whose checker-board crew had set an
example early in the cruise.
Ingot Ike came to the captain and myself in the wheel-house.
“Now that we’re beginning to haul in the bright and shining stuff that
makes the world go round I’d like to know where I’m going to get off
when the divvy comes,” said he. And he was more than a little insolent
in the way he said it. It was a good guess that he had absorbed more or
less of the insolence of his new running-mate, Marcena Keedy.
Captain Holstrom was pretty short with the man. He informed old Ike that
when the work was done and we knew what the profits would be he would
be handed a lay which would make him comfortable for life. “That was the
understanding between us when we started out on the gamble,” said the
captain. “You haven’t got a dollar ahead now--you never did have. A lot
of money wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. You don’t know how to keep it
or how to spend it.”
“That ain’t any of your business!” declared Ike, with heat. “We have
begun to get up that gold. We’ll get all of it. It’s there, just as I
said it was. I want ten per cent, of all that comes over the rail, and I
want it without any strings on it.”
“And if you got it laid into your hand you’d be around in six months
borrowing from me,” said the captain. “If this thing comes out as it
ought to, I’ll put enough in trust for you to pay you a hundred dollars
a month as long as you live. Now go off and dream of that, and be
happy.”
“Happy your Aunt Lizy!” yelped the old man. “See here, me and Keedy is
the whole thing in this, and--”
Captain Holstrom arose and grabbed Ike and tossed him out of the
wheel-house door.
“Them two fellows,” he confided, wrathfully, to me, “will be charging me
board on this trip, besides taking all the profits for themselves, if I
don’t watch out.”
I did not confide to the captain any of my doubts that evening in
our talk. I was hoping for the best. I had recovered one box with the
assistance of my enemy, the old Pacific. I understood the queer and
notional quirks of undertows. I realized that history might not repeat
itself in this case--but the Pacific coast was new to me, and I was not
ready to believe that I had happened on the only case of an undertow
scooping sand instead of piling it and packing it. I went to bed, tired
as a hound after a chase.
And I went down into the sea again the next day, still hoping. Yes, I
was fairly confident--so confident that I carried a pair of ice-tongs.
My experience of the day before had shown me that this tool was just
the thing with which to grapple one of those boxes and lift it from the
sand.
There was plenty of motion in the depths of the sea. But I realized that
it was not the motion of the day before. The swaying water thrust me
ahead over the hummocks with more force than it pulled me backward. The
water was clear and green once more. Where, oh, where had my undertow
gone?
I had ground my crowbar into the sand where I worked the day before. I
could not find it, and after a survey I saw it had been covered by the
drifting sand. Portions of the wreck which had been in sight were
hidden again. The hole where I had wrought so valiantly was filled and
smoothed. It is wonderful how quickly currents of water can make changes
in sand. I had seen instances before in my submarine jobs; now I was
beholding a more striking case. After inspecting the scene I judged that
the treasure was buried more deeply than ever. The ocean had plenty of
loose sand with which to work, and had used it. I tell you honestly I
never suffered such an awful feeling of disappointment. The pang was
worse because I had been successful once.
It was as though my enemy, the ocean, had decided to give me one bite of
the fruit of success in order to whet the appetite of my expectations.
It had not relented in order to do that--it had played a devilish trick
on me.
It had shown me that the millions were there--money-enough for all that
life or love might require in this world. I had got a peep--had got one
taste--and the malicious ocean had tucked it all out of reach once more,
and was making faces at me with the wrinkles of that hard-packed sand.
It was useless to remain down and exhaust myself. I signaled, and
returned to the lighter.
As soon as my bull’s-eye cleared after I came up out of the bubbling
water I saw Keedy. He was perched on the rail near the life-line coils,
looking down at me like a fish-hawk eying its prey. For a moment I was
glad I did not have another box. I enjoyed his disappointment.
Then, after my helmet was off, I told Captain Hol-strom that a change in
current had piled up the sand and that nothing could be done that day.
“That’s it!” raged Keedy, smacking his fist into his palm. “You wouldn’t
take my advice yesterday. You wouldn’t follow your hand when the cards
were running right. I understand about those things. That was the time
to double the ante! I know how to play the game for what it’s worth.
There ain’t any brains in this whole outfit except what I’ve got under
my hat. I see it’s up to me to go down there and show you how to do this
thing.”
“I’ll be out of this diving-dress in a few minutes,” I told him. “You’re
welcome to use it.”
I had a wild hope that he was mad enough to go down--angry enough and
gold-hungry enough. It would have settled the case of Keedy if he had
gone down--soaked with rum and tobacco as he was. But he swore and
walked away and jumped into the life-boat--so much of a coward that he
wanted to put as great a distance between that dress and himself as he
could.
I can describe the happenings of the next two sad weeks in two words,
“Nothing doing!”
Not that I didn’t go down. I went every day. I tried all kinds of tools.
I sat up nights to think, and worked days under water until they had to
pull me back to the lighter, riding on my back over the sand hummocks,
so weak that I could not use my feet and drag my lead-weighted shoes.
But the old Pacific had given us our one mouthful of bait, and now was
mocking us. If I loosened sand the ocean took that sand and piled it
higher over the treasure. And all the time Keedy glowered and growled
and swore, and said I was not half trying.
One morning Captain Holstrom came banging on my state-room door before I
was awake. He tried to tell me something, fairly frothing at the
mouth, but the words tumbled over each other so rapidly that I couldn’t
understand. He was jabbing a slip of paper at me, and I took it and
read:
_To Holstrom and Sidney,--With two partners working against me, I claim
the partnership is broken. After this I’ll work on my own hook, and I’ll
have a man who is a real diver, not a dub; and I warn you not to bother
me in any way._
“Partnership broken!” yelled the captain. “And how do you suppose he has
broken it? He sneaked away in the night. He took Ike and four of my crew
and the best life-boat. But that ain’t the worst. He took the gold--all
of it! Took the twenty thousand. He had the key to the safe.”
“Why did you let him have the key to the safe?”
“Because he howled around that he ought to have some office as a
partner, and wanted to be treasurer. He has trimmed us for twenty
thousand, and he’ll use that money to fit out another expedition. He
has done us good and proper, and there ain’t anything sensible we can do
about it.”
I reflected a few moments, and decided that, considering the kind of a
project we were working on, we could not afford to chase Keedy and howl.
In the opinion of certain persons interested in that wreck, we might
appear as thieves, ourselves, if the thing became known in Frisco.
I tried to say something to Captain Holstrom about being well rid of
Keedy, but I do not think he heard me. He was too busy stamping about
and swearing. That was truly a dark-blue morning on the _Zizania_.
They were certainly weary and hopeless days which tagged on after
that. I kept going down, for I hoped to meet up with another obliging
undertow. But San Apusa Bar did not seem to be a popular resort for
undertows.
In about ten days we got another hard jolt. A little schooner came
swashing up in the lee of the _Zizania_, and a boat was rowed off to us.
The two men who leaped over the rail introduced themselves as Mexican
customs officers for the district off which we lay, and they wore the
uniform to prove their identity. It had been reported to them, they
said, that we were seeking treasure from the wreck of the _Golden Gate_,
and they told us we must stop such business at once and sail away or we
should lay ourselves liable to arrest and imprisonment. They had a lot
to tell us about what the law was, but I have forgotten. Maybe they were
giving us straight law, and maybe they were not. Neither Holstrom nor I
knew.
The captain did know men if he did not know law--and he was a man
who had mighty keen sense for a crook’s trail, having had a lot of
experience with crooks on the water-front. He rubbed his red knob of a
nose for some time, and listened. Then he invited the customs men into
his sanctuary of the wheel-house, and called me along with them.
“I know all about who has been talking this over with you, gents,” he
told them. “I reckoned he would make down the coast in that life-boat he
stole from me. He stole that boat, he stole my men, he stole what else
he could lay his hands on here. He is a yaller-faced faro-dealer. He
never told the truth, he never dealt square cards, he has always cut
a corner on every man he had business with. I don’t want to see you
fooled. I’m the captain of this steamer. You can see I’m something of a
man. This is my partner, and you can look at him and see that he is no
crook. I’m going to get right to the point, gents. Do you want to do
business with a square man or a crook? You might as well be open with
me. Men have to live down here in Mexico. I know all about this customs
business along the coast. You’ve got to do business to live.”
They blinked hard, but they did not protest.
“I don’t know how much of a ‘hot rock’ he dropped into your hat, but I’m
prepared to drop in a bigger and a hotter one.”
I had never heard that expression about a “hot rock” before, and I was
obliged to listen a little while longer in order to understand that
Captain Holstrom was talking thus bluntly about a bribe.
“In one case you’re doing business with a crook--a thief. He’ll turn
around and do you when he has used you. In this case you are dealing
with a man who has a name along the water-front, who owns this steamer,
and who is here to make a dollar for himself and for you. You are men
with brains and you can size up chaps pretty well. I’ll bet you didn’t
like the looks of that whelp with his cat’s eyes and his mustache cocked
up--come, now!”
They blinked harder.
The captain leaned to me and whispered in my ear: “Run and tell Kama to
give you every gold piece she has got in her pocket. Dig over your own
pockets. Tell the Joneses to dig. Bring it here. I’ve got to keep ’em
on the run with conversation.”
I returned with my collection, and the captain added the contents of his
own pocket, banging the coins on the transom. Then he swept the money
into a little sack and drove the sack down into the trousers pocket of
one of the officers.
“That’s only posting a little forfeit that we’ll do as we agree,” cried
Captain Holstrom, heartily. “We are here where you can watch us, gents.
But you can’t watch a fly-by-night like that coyote who has been lying
to you about us. Keep your eyes out--stand by us--and you’ll get a ‘hot
rock’ in your hat that you’ll need both hands to hold up. We’ll see the
other man’s stake and then raise him out of the game--and if we don’t,
then come and seize the steamer.”
He followed the men to the rail, shook hands with them half a dozen
times, and they returned most urbane grins when they rowed away.
As soon as they were out of ear-shot the captain cursed them in horrible
fashion and shook his clenched fist at them under pretense of waving
farewells.
“So that’s what Keedy done as quick as he got down coast to a port, hey?
Cleaned us out of what he could lug, and then sent them critters here
to finish the job. He probably thinks he is going to make a clear field
here for himself by strapping us for every cent, and then setting the
customs on to us as soon as he can drop another ‘hot rock’ into their
hat so as to raise us out.”
“Don’t those men feel bound in any way after taking money from us?” I
asked him.
“They feel bound till the next fellow gets to ’em, my son. Do you see
what we have got cut out for us? By the jumped-up Judy, we’ve got to get
that gold--and we’ve got to keep ahead of everybody else in getting that
gold, because them custom-house blood-suckers are going to stick to the
juiciest crowd. I don’t know what kind of an outfit Keedy proposes to
bring back here, but he has got twenty thousand dollars in his fist, and
a man can do a lot of business on charters with twenty thousand dollars.
And we haven’t got a sou markee.”
He stamped into the wheel-house, shaking his fist above his head, and I
walked up and down the upper deck, thinking some thoughts which I do not
care to call back to mind.