A NEW arrival off San Apusa Bar had interested us for a couple of days.
It was a husky sloop with a leg-of-mutton mainsail--a broad-bellied
craft on which a dozen men showed themselves when it sailed past us to
take up a position near the ribs of the wreck. This sloop seemed to be
of a build to ride the surges easily, and ventured much closer inshore
than we had dared to anchor our lighter. The men did not visit us, and
displayed no desire to meddle with the secrets of the equipment on the
walled-up scow. We wondered who they were, why they were there, and left
them alone.
I went down and crawfished my way over the sand windrows, but I could
make only slow work of it, for I was stiffened by my days of inaction.
But that new idea of mine went along with me for my encouragement.
I had hardly put myself in position, ready to call for my stream of
water, when I got a rousing surprise. Down through the sea came rushing
a naked man. The depths were fairly clear, for I had not begun to stir
the roil with my nozzle. His eyes were wide open and staring, and I
reckon that I peered at him through my bull’s-eye with eyes just as wide
open. When he arrived close to me he dropped a rock from each hand, his
diving weights, and grabbed me, hanging to my belt. I sat right there on
the sand and gaped at him. His mouth was shut tight--he was holding his
breath.
In a short time another naked man came down like the stick of a
sky-rocket. He dropped his rocks and grabbed me, and the first man
let go and went swimming up to the surface. Then came a third man and
replaced the second.
I began to feel like a candidate for office in the receiving line. I
wanted to ask some questions about what this function meant. But for
good and obvious reasons I could not carry on a conversation, and I did
not know the deaf-and-dumb alphabet.
Along came the fourth man. I noticed that each man wore a narrow belt
with a huge knife fastened in it. And that’s all the man did wear. The
sight of the knife made me rather nervous. A man under water,
straining to hold his breath, his eyes bulging with his efforts, is a
savage-looking object at best. These men were plainly Mexicans, and they
looked particularly savage. I felt pretty sure that they were not diving
down there to cheer me in my loneliness or to ask me to run for mayor.
Then it came to me all at once who these men were. As a submarine
worker, I was interested, of course, in all sorts of jobs under the sea,
and I had read various accounts of the Mexican pearl divers. I knew that
they could descend long distances and could remain under water, many of
them, for ninety seconds. One man succeeded another, diving in rotation.
I remained there without moving, staring at them until I began to
recognize faces. They were making me return visits. I realized that they
did not propose to carve me--the first man could have done that on his
first call. Therefore I got my nerve back and decided to go to work. I
signaled for water.
It occurred to me that my new friends might find that the “fogo” I
stirred with that hose would be a little too much for them. I resisted
an impulse to bat them away from me with that nozzle, a considerable
effort in selfcontrol, for my temper was pretty short in those dreadful
days.
They stuck to me bravely at first when the sand began to swirl. There
was an itching under my ribs when the sand made a pall and darkness
settled on me. I was afraid that one of my callers might become peevish
and ram his knife into me as a hint not to muddy that water.
It was not easy to hold my position and work with a man anchored to me.
But I was not bothered for long.
The tug at my belt ceased suddenly, and I knew that they had given up.
They could not find me in that smother.
They resumed operations again when I got up my first box. In working
my way out of the hole I decreased the flow from the hose, and when I
reached the top of the sand the swirling particles were settling and
were being washed farther inshore by the surges. In a clearer sea
down came those devils once more, and fastened to me, one by one, like
leeches. They tried to clutch the box, but it was too heavy for them.
It was hoisted past them up to the surf-boat, and once more I drove the
nozzle into the sand and forced them off me with a whirlpool of mush.
They were more bothersome the next time I allowed the sea to clear. Two
dove at a time, and grabbed me, and almost lifted me up with them. I
was furious, but I did not try to beat them off. I kept on about my own
affairs as best I could, and allowed them to hang on to me. There were
a dozen of them above, with knives, and I had no hankering to tackle
the pack. I was not sure as to their motives, anyway. One rip of a knife
would have put me out of business. But they did not offer to use knives.
I did a short day’s work and went back to the lighter. Captain Holstrom
had watched their diving operations and was full of eager questions.
That night we doubled the guards on the _Zizania_. But no boat came near
us.
My friends were ready for me next day, and resumed the same tactics. I
carried a bigger knife, and kept my eye out as best I could. But before
I got the stream started they were coming at me three at a time. They
kept lifting me off bottom, and I wasted a lot of valuable time and much
of my little stock of strength before I got down on the sand and began
to bore. They were ready for me again as soon as I got up with a box and
the sea had cleared a bit. One of them brought a rope, and tried to get
it around a box I was handling, but I had my tongs well set, and my men
hoisted the treasure away from them. Then they began to interfere with
me so savagely that I quit in disgust and signaled to be pulled up.
I was half crazy with rage, and frantic because this sort of business
was putting me where I could not realize on that idea which I was
nursing.
After listening to me, Captain Holstrom set his cap well down over his
ears, jutting his chin, set his teeth, and called for his boat. He was
rowed over to the side of the little sloop. He came back very soon and
he was not looking pleased.
“I couldn’t get anything out of that bunch except a few grunts and a lot
of jabber,” he reported. “They make believe they can’t understand the
English language. They want graft, I suppose. They’d understand, all
right, if I was to carry over a slug of gold and dump it over the rail.
But I’m about tired of feeding gold to everybody who comes along here.”
“This isn’t our gold to give away to all comers,” I told him. He blinked
at me, and did not seem to understand. I did not go into that side of
the question any further, for I was not ready for much argument at that
time. “I’ll not stand for any more ‘hot rocks,’” I told him.
“Nor I, either,” he agreed. “Begin to feed gold to those chaps, and
they’ll think we are scared of ’em and they’ll want the whole mess.”
To show them that I was not scared, I went down the next day, and I had
a wire edge on my temper. I balked at starting a knife duel, however,
and after a struggle got my hole started.
I struck something new that day in the ruck at the bottom of the hole.
I found ingots loose in the hodgepodge of pantry wreckage. A wooden box
had been smashed. I had a slit and a sort of deep pocket in the canvas
overalls affair which protected my India-rubber suit. As my toes located
loose ingots, I sifted the mush of sand with the fingers of one hand,
captured the gold, and stuffed it down into the deep pocket. I came up
with a box, and my breeches were bagging with gold.
Then came the climax of my strained relations with those greaser divers.
I’ve heard of pickpockets operating everywhere, almost, but I reckon
that I’m the first and only man who ever had his pockets picked at the
bottom of the sea. The first devil who got to me as the sand settled, in
groping for a handhold on my dress, felt the loose ingots. He got one,
but he did not get away with it. Trouble or no trouble, knives or no
knives, I had got to the limit of my temper. I gave him a jab with the
end of my sheet-iron nozzle, and as near as I could judge I took a hunk
of meat out of him as neatly as a woman could operate on dough with a
doughnut cutter. The edges of that nozzle had been whetted on sand until
they were as sharp as a razor blade. The fellow drooped that ingot and
darted upward, blood streaming behind him. Another diver was coming down
to take his place, but when I jabbed at him with the nozzle he whirled
like a fish and went up, giving me an awful kick when he started.
I reckoned I had thrown down the gage of battle, and I was not minded
to stay there and meet the pack, for I was weak after my extra struggle
down in the hole. It had been a tedious job gathering that loose gold.
I saw the box started on the way to the surf-boat, gave the emergency
signal, and was yanked back to the lighter at a lively clip.
Later that day, being in a proper and ugly frame of mind, I tucked a
rifle under my arm and had myself rowed to the neighboring sloop. I
found the spokesman of the crew ready to talk English that day, all
right. But when our conversation was ended I had received a surprise. No
demand was made on me for a “hot rock.” I found that I was dealing with
men who had deeper motives. It took me some time to understand that they
were not holding out for a big offer. The man at the rail wrinkled his
nose and sneered when I angrily told him that was what they were after.
“It’s what I’d expect a gringo to tell me,” he said. “But we are not
here to do business with thieves. You have no right to be here. You may
pick and steal, but it will not amount to _that!_” He snapped his finger
above his head. “We shall do our business with those who will have the
gold in the end, with those who can pay and will pay. And we have a man
who will see that we are paid.”
My wits had been sharpened while I had toiled at San Apusa Bar. I was
able to see farther into the ways of guile than before I had met a man
like Marcena Keedy. I had a flash of suspicion that was almost instinct.
“So you think you have made a better trade with that renegade, Keedy, do
you?” I flung at him.