THE GREAT ADVENTURE
The news that old Captain Jules Fontaine, the retired pearl diver, whose
history was a mystery to most of the inhabitants at Cape May, was to take
Madge Morton down to the bottom of Delaware Bay with him spread through
the town and seaside resort like wildfire. It was in vain that the
houseboat party and Captain Jules tried to keep the affair a secret.
There were necessary arrangements to be made, men to be engaged to assist
in the diving operations; it was impossible to deny everything.
At first the plan seemed to outsiders like mere midsummer madness. Then
the story began to grow. Cape May residents learned that Captain Jules
had found pearls in the bottom of the bay. No one would believe the
captain's statement that the pearls were of little value; gossip made the
tiny pearls grow larger and larger, until they were fit for an empress.
Captain Jules was besieged at his little house up the bay, although, as
usual, he kept the door fastened against intruders. Half the fishermen
and oystermen in the vicinity begged to be permitted to accompany the old
sea diver in his descent into the water. Captain Jules politely explained
that he needed no companions; he was merely going on a diving expedition
to amuse two of his friends, Phyllis Alden and Madge Morton, who had a
taste for watery adventure. He did not expect to find anything of value
in the bottom of the bay. They were going down merely for sport.
There was one person at Cape May who listened eagerly to any tale of the
fabulous riches that the old pearl diver was evidently expecting to
unearth. He was Philip Holt. The time of his visit at Cape May was
rapidly passing. Mrs. Curtis was exceedingly kind and interested in her
guest, but Philip did not feel that he dared approach her too abruptly
with the request for so large a sum of money as five thousand dollars.
Besides, Philip Holt knew that Tom Curtis disliked him heartily. Tom was
not likely to approve a man whom Madge mistrusted; nor would Mrs. Curtis
give away or lend five thousand dollars without first consulting her son.
So the marvelous tale of the pearls to be found in the Delaware Bay
rooted itself in Philip Holt's imagination. Here was another way to get
out of his scrape. He was not fond of adventure, but he would do anything
in the world for money. Perhaps he could find pearls enough not only to
pay his debt, but to make him rich forever afterward.
Quietly, and without a word to any one, Philip Holt made a secret visit
to the house of the three sails. He implored Captain Jules to make him
his diving companion. He attempted to bribe him with sums of money that
he did not possess. He even threatened the old sailor that he would make
investigations about his life and expose any secrets that the captain
might wish to keep. Captain Jules only laughed at these threats. He was
not going down in the bay for treasures, he declared. He expected to find
absolutely nothing of any value. Positively he would not allow any one to
accompany him but the two girls.
Madge and Phyllis had a hard fight to persuade Miss Jenny Ann to give her
consent to their plan for playing mermaid. But she was getting so
accustomed to the exciting adventures of her girls that, when Captain
Jules assured her there was really no special danger, so long as he kept
a close watch on the diver with him, she finally agreed to the scheme.
Captain Jules gave the two girls every kind of instruction in the art of
diving that he thought necessary, and the day of the great watery
adventure was set for the week ahead.
On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, Madge awoke at daybreak. She felt a
delicious, shivery thrill pass over her that was one part fear and the
other part rapture.
"Phil," she whispered a few seconds later, when she heard her chum
stirring in the berth above her, "can you feel fins growing where your
feet are? Your flop in the bed sounded as though you were a real mermaid!
Just think, at ten o'clock sharp we are going down to explore a new
world! I wonder if there were ever any girl divers before? You are
awfully good to let me go down first."
"No, I am not," answered Phil soberly. "If there is any danger, I am
letting you go down to it first. But I shall watch above the water, with
all my eyes, to see that everything goes right. The captain has explained
the whole business of diving to us so thoroughly that I believe I can
tell if anything is wrong with you below the surface. You'll be careful,
won't you, Madge? You know you are usually rather reckless. Don't stay
down too long."
"Oh, Captain Jules won't let me be reckless this time. We are not going
down into very deep water, anyway, and a professional diver can stay
under several hours when the water is only about five fathoms deep."
Madge and Phyllis ate a very light breakfast. Captain Jules had told them
that a diver must never go down into the water on a full stomach, as it
would make him too short-winded. While the two prospective divers were
eating poor Miss Jenny Ann was wondering what had ever induced her to
give her consent to so mad an enterprise as this diving.
Every effort had been made to keep a crowd away from the pier from which
Captain Jules meant to send out the boats with the tenders, who were the
men to look after the safety of Madge and himself.
As the girls came up, with Miss Jenny Ann, to join Captain Jules they saw
twenty or thirty people about. Mrs. Curtis and Tom, accompanied by Philip
Holt, had come down to the pier. Mrs. Curtis would hardly speak to Madge,
she was so angry at the risk she believed the little captain was running.
She and Madge had not been very friendly since they had disagreed so
utterly in Madge's report of the real character and name of Philip Holt.
Madge and Phyllis each wore a close fitting, warm woolen dress. Madge had
tucked up her red-brown curls into a tight knot. Her eyes were glowing,
but her face was white and her lips a little less red when Captain Jules
came forward to fasten her into her diving suit.
"Don't attempt it, Madge, if you are frightened," urged Miss Jenny Ann,
who was feeling dreadfully frightened herself. "I am sure Captain Jules
will forgive you if you back out."
Captain Jules looked at Madge searchingly. Her eyes smiled bravely into
his, although her heart was going pit-a-pat.
"Miss Madge is not afraid," answered Captain Jules curtly. "Robert
Morton's daughter has no right to know fear."
Madge first slipped her feet into a pair of heavy leather boots. She gave
a gay laugh as she slipped into her rubber cloth suit, which was made in
one piece. "I feel just like a walrus," she confided to Tom Curtis, who
was watching her with set lips.
Then Madge and Captain Jules, who was in exactly the same costume, got
into their boats and moved out a little distance from the shore.
Tom Curtis had asked Captain Jules's consent to sit in one of the boats
with Phil. At the last moment Philip Holt stepped calmly into the other.
No one stopped to argue with him, or to thrust him out; the whole party
was too much excited.
Not for all the pearls in all the seas would Captain Jules Fontaine have
allowed one hair of Madge's head to be injured. But he really did not
believe that she would be in any danger under the water with him. He had
arranged every detail of the diving perfectly. He would watch her every
movement at the bottom of the bay. To tell the truth, Captain Jules was
immensely proud of Madge's and Phil's bravery in desiring to accompany
him.
The final moment for the dive arrived. Madge waved her hand to the crowd
of her friends lining the shore. She flung back her head and looked
gayly, triumphantly, up at the blue sky above her, with its sweep of
white, sailing clouds. Below her the water looked even more deeply blue.
"Remember, Madge," whispered Captain Jules calmly, "the one quality a
diver needs more than anything else is presence of mind. Keep a clear
head under the water and nothing shall harm you, I swear. But above all,
don't forget your signals."
With his own hands Captain Jules fastened the brass corselet about
Madge's slender neck and set a big copper helmet which he screwed over
her head to her corselet. Madge then surveyed the world only through the
glass windows at each side of her head and in front. Her air-tube entered
her helmet at the back. Two men in one of the boats were to keep the
young girl diver supplied with oxygen by pumping fresh air down through
this tube.
A moment later Captain Jules stood rigged in the same costume as Madge.
"Steady, my girl," Captain Jules warned her.
"Aye, aye, Captain," returned Madge quietly, "I'm ready. Let us go down
together to the bottom of the bay."
"Pump away," ordered the captain.
There was a splash on the surface of the clear water, a long-drawn gasp
from Madge's friends; then a few bubbles rose. Rapidly, skillfully,
Madge's tenders played out her life and pipe lines, and Madge Morton
disappeared from the world of men. Captain Jules made his plunge a few
seconds in advance of his companion.
In the boat where Tom Curtis and Phyllis Alden sat there was a
breathless, intense silence. The boy and girl happened to be in the boat
with the men who were looking out for the welfare of Captain Jules.
Philip Holt was with Madge's tenders.
Phyllis knew that there was but one way in which she could follow her
chum's course below the surface of the water. She could watch her life
and air lines. Captain Jules had made it plain to Phyllis that all the
time the diver is under water small ripples will appear near his air
line. These bubbles are caused by the air that the diver breathes out
from the valve in the side of his diving helmet.
Phyllis watched the lines doggedly. Captain Jules was to keep Madge under
water only about fifteen or twenty minutes, but at that a minute may
appear longer than an hour.
Suddenly Phyllis Alden discovered that the man who was tending Madge's
air pump seemed to be working less vigorously. He pumped unevenly. Once
he swayed, as though he were about to fall over in his seat.
In a second it flashed over Phyllis that the man was ill. He was a
strong, red-faced individual, but his face turned to a kind of ghastly
pallor. It was all so quick that Phil had no time to speak from her boat.
Philip Holt, who was in the same boat with the man, grasped the situation
as quickly as Phyllis did. With a single motion he took the tender's
place at the air-pump. Phil saw that he was pumping away with vigor.
At this moment Phil turned to speak to Tom Curtis. "Tom, how long have
they been under the water?" she whispered.
"Ten minutes," returned Tom, glancing hastily at his watch.
"It seems ten hours," murmured Phil, as though she dared not speak
aloud.
Tug, tug! Phil thought she saw Madge's air line give two desperate jerks.
Two pulls at the line was the diver's signal for more air. Phil knew that
without a doubt. Yet Philip Holt seemed to be pumping vigorously. At
least, he had been only the second before when Phil last looked at him.
Again Phil saw Madge's air line jerk twice.
Tom Curtis and the two men in Captain Jules's boat were vainly trying to
interpret some signals that Captain Jules was making to them. The two
boats were at no great distance apart.
"I am afraid something is the matter below, Phil," Tom Curtis turned to
mutter hoarsely. But Phyllis Alden, who had been sitting near him a
moment before, was no longer there.
Phyllis believed she saw that Philip Holt was only pretending to pump
sufficient air down to Madge. She may have been wrong. Who could ever
tell? But Phil knew there was no time to discuss the matter. One minute,
two minutes, five or ten--Phil did not know how long a diver at the
bottom of the water can be shut off from his supply of fresh air and
live. She did not mean to wait, to ask questions, or to lose time. Phil
made a flying leap from the skiff that held her to the one in which
Philip Holt sat by the air-pump. She landed in the water, just alongside
the boat. Quietly, though more quickly than she had ever moved before in
her life, Phil climbed into the boat and thrust Philip Holt away from the
air pump. In the minute it had taken her to make her plunge she had seen
Madge's signal again, but this time the line jerked more feebly than it
had before.
Phil set the pump to working again; the signal answered from below, "All
is well!"
The tender had recovered from his attack of faintness and resumed his
work at Madge's airline.
But Philip Holt sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, his face white
with anger. What would Phyllis Alden's action suggest but that he was
trying to suffocate Madge in the water below?
Whether or not Philip Holt meant to stifle Madge Morton he himself never
really knew. The impulse came to him as he placed his hands on her
air-pump. It flashed across his mind that it was Madge who had tried to
injure his prospects with Mrs. Curtis, and who had kept him from going
down with Captain Jules to search for the pearls that he firmly believed
would be found at the bottom of the bay. It was while these thoughts
passed through Philip Holt's mind his pressure on Madge's air-pump had
wavered. But Phyllis Alden had discovered it. She gave him no opportunity
either for action or regret.