In a certain street of Hong-Kong there stands one of those temples in
which men devote themselves to the consumption of opium, that terrible
drug which is said to destroy the natives of the celestial empire more
fatally than "strong drink" does the peoples of the west. In various
little compartments of this temple, many celestials lay in various
conditions of debauch. Among them was a stout youth of twenty or so.
He was in the act of lighting the little pipe from which the noxious
vapour is inhaled. His fat and healthy visage proved that he had only
commenced his downward career.
He had scarce drawn a single whiff, however, when a burly sailor-like
man in an English garb entered the temple, went straight to the
compartment where our beginner reclined, plucked the pipe from his hand,
and dashed it on the ground.
"I _know'd_ ye was here," said the man, sternly, "an' I _said_ you was
here, an' sure haven't I _found_ you here--you spalpeen! You pig-faced
bag o' fat! What d'ee mane by it, Chok-foo? Didn't I say I'd give you
as much baccy as ye could chaw or smoke an ye'd only kape out o' this
place? Come along wid ye!"
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that the man who spoke, and who
immediately collared and dragged Chok-foo away, was none other than our
friend Rooney Machowl. That worthy had been sent to China in advance of
the party of divers with his wife and baby--for in the event of success
he said he'd be able to "affoord it," and in the event of failure he
meant to try his luck in "furrin' parts," and would on no account leave
either wife or chick behind him.
On his arrival a double misfortune awaited him. First he found that his
employer, Edgar Berrington, was laid up with fever, in the house of an
English friend, and could not be spoken to, or even seen; and second,
the lodging in which he had put up caught fire the second night after
his arrival, and was burnt to the ground, with all its contents,
including nearly the whole of his diving apparatus. Fortunately, the
unlucky Irishman saved his wife and child and money, the last having
been placed in a leathern belt made for the purpose, and worn night and
day round his waist. Being a resolute and hopeful man, Rooney
determined to hunt up a diving apparatus of some sort, if such was to
be found in China, and he succeeded. He found, in an old
iron-and-rag-store sort of place, a very ancient head-piece and dress,
which were in good repair though of primitive construction.
Fortunately, his own pumps and air-pipes, having been deposited in an
out-house, had escaped the general conflagration.
Rooney was a man of contrivance and resource. He soon fitted the pump
to the new dress and found that it worked well, though the helmet was
destitute of the modern regulating valves under the diver's control, and
he knew that it must needs therefore leave the diver who should use it
very much at the mercy of the men who worked the pumps.
After the fire, Rooney removed with his family to the house of a Chinese
labourer named Chok-foo, whose brother, Ram-stam, dwelt with him. They
were both honest hard-working men, but Chok-foo was beginning, as we
have seen, to fall under the baleful influence of opium-smoking.
Ram-stam may be said to have been a teetotaler in this respect. They
were both men of humble spirit.
Chok-foo took the destruction of his pipe and the rough collaring that
followed in good part, protesting, in an extraordinary jargon, which is
styled Pidgin-English, that he had only meant to have a "Very littee
smokee," not being able, just then, to resist the temptation.
"Blathers!" said Rooney, as they walked along in the direction of the
lower part of the town, "you could resist the timptation aisy av you'd
only try, for you're only beginnin', an' it hasn't got howld of 'ee yit.
Look at your brother Ram, now; why don't 'ee take example by him?"
"Yis, Ram-stam's first-chop boy," said Chok-foo, with a penitential
expression on his fat visage.
"Well, then, you try and be a first-chop boy too, Chok, an' it'll be
better for you. Now, you see, you've kep' us all waiting for full half
an hour, though we was so anxious to try how the dress answers."
In a few minutes the son of Erin and the Chinaman entered the half
ruinous pagoda which was their habitation. Here little Mrs Machowl was
on her knees before an air-pump, oiling and rubbing up its parts.
Ram-stam, with clasped hands, head a little on one side, and a gentle
smile of approbation on his lips, admired the progress of the operation.
"Now then, Chok and Ram," said Rooney, sitting down on a stool and
making the two men stand before him like a small awkward squad, "I'm
goin' to taich you about pumps an' pumpin', so pay attintion av ye
plaze. Hids up an' ears on full cock! Now then."
Here the vigorous diver began an elaborate explanation which we will
spare the reader, and which his pupils evidently did not comprehend,
though they smiled with ineffable sweetness and listened with close
attention. When, however, the teacher descended from theory to
practice, and took the pump to pieces, put it up again, and showed the
manner of working, the Chinamen became more intelligent, and soon showed
that they could turn the handles with great vigour. They were
hopelessly stupid, however, in regard to the use of the signal-line--
insomuch that Rooney began to despair.
"Niver mind, boys," he cried, hopefully, "we'll try it."
Accordingly he donned the diving-dress, and teaching his wife how to
screw on the bull's-eye, he gave the signal to "pump away."
Of course Chok-foo and Ram-stam, though anxious to do well, did ill
continually. When Rooney, standing in the room and looking at them,
signalled to give "more air," they became anxious and gave him less,
until his dress was nearly empty. When he signalled for "less air" they
gave him more, until his dress nearly burst, and then, not having the
breast-valve, he was obliged to unscrew his front-glass to prevent an
explosion! At last the perplexed man resolved to make his wife do duty
as attender to signals, and was fortunate in this arrangement at first,
for Molly was quick of apprehension. She soon understood all about it,
and, receiving her husband's signals, directed the Chinamen what to do.
In order to test his assistants better, he then went out on the verandah
of the pagoda, where the pumpers could not see him nor he them. He was,
of course, fully dressed, only the bull's-eye was not fixed.
"_Now_, Molly, dear," said he, "go to work just as if I was goin' under
water."
Molly dimpled her cheeks with a smile as she held up the glass, and
said, "Are ye ready?"
"Not yet; putt your lips here first."
He stooped; Molly inserted part of her face into the circular hole, and
a smack resounded in the helmet.
"Now, cushla, I'm ready."
"Pump away, boys," shouted the energetic little woman.
As soon as she heard the hiss of the air in the helmet, she screwed on
the bull's-eye, and our diver was as much shut off from surrounding
atmosphere as if he had been twenty fathoms under the sea. Then she
went to where the pumpers were at work, and taking the air-pipe in one
hand and the life-line in the other, awaited signals. These were soon
sent from the verandah. More air was demanded and given; less was asked
and the pumpers wrought gently. Molly gave one pull at the life-line,
"All right?" Rooney replied, "All right." This was repeated several
times. Then came four sharp pulls at the line. Molly was on the alert;
she bid Ram-stam continue to pump while Chok-foo helped her to pull the
diver forcibly out of the verandah into the interior of the pagoda amid
shouts of laughter, in which Rooney plainly joined though his voice
could not be heard.
"Capital, Molly," exclaimed the delighted husband when his glass was
off; "I always belaved--an' I belave it now more than iver--that a purty
woman is fit for anything. After a few more experiments like that I'll
go down in shallow wather wid an aisy mind."
Rooney kept his word. When he deemed his assistants perfect at their
work, he went one morning to the river with all his gear, hired a boat,
pushed off till he had got into two fathoms water, and then, dressing
himself with the aid of the Chinamen, prepared to descend.
"Are you ready?" asked his wife.
"Yis, cushla, but you've forgot the kiss."
"Am I to kiss _all_ the divers we shall have to do with before sending
them down?" she asked.
"If you want _all_ the divers to be kicked you may," was the reply.
Molly cut short further remark by giving the order to pump, and affixing
the glass. For a few seconds the diver looked earnestly at the Chinamen
and at his better half, who may have been said to hold his life in her
hands. Then he stepped boldly on the short ladder that had been let
down outside the boat, and was soon lost to view in the multitude of
air-bells that rose above him.
Now, Rooney had neglected to take into his calculations the excitability
of female nerves. It was all very well for his wife to remember
everything and proceed correctly when he was in the verandah of the
pagoda, but when she knew that her best-beloved was at the bottom of the
sea, and saw the air-bells rising, her courage vanished, and with her
courage went her presence of mind. A rush of alarm entered her soul as
she saw the boiling of the water, and fancying she was giving too much
air, she said hurriedly, "Pump slow, boys," but immediately conceiving
she had done wrong, she said, "Pump harder, boys."
The Chinamen pumped with a will, for they also had become excited, and
were only too glad to obey orders.
A signal-pull now came for "Less air," but Molly had taken up an idea,
and it could not be dislodged. She thought it must be "More air" that
was wanted.
"Pump away, boys--pump," she cried, in rapidly increasing alarm.
Chok-foo and Ram-stam obeyed.
The signal was repeated somewhat impatiently.
"Pump away, boys; for dear life--pump," cried the little woman in
desperate anxiety.
Perspiration rolled down the cheeks of Chok-foo and Ram-stam as they
gasped for breath and turned the handles with all the strength they
possessed.
"Pump--oh! Pump--for pity's sake."
She ended with a wild shriek, for at that moment the waves were cleft
alongside, and Rooney Machowl came up from the bottom, feet foremost,
with a bounce that covered the sea with foam. He had literally been
blown up from the bottom--his dress being filled with so much compressed
air that he had become like a huge bladder, and despite all his weights,
he rolled helplessly on the surface in vain attempts to get his head up
and his feet down.
Of course his distracted wife hauled in on the life-line with all her
might, and Chok-foo and Ram-stam, forsaking the pump, lent their aid and
soon hauled the luckless diver into the boat, when his first act was to
deal the Chinamen a cuff each that sent one into the stern-sheets on his
nose, and the other into the bow on his back. Immediately thereafter he
fell down as if senseless, and Molly, with trembling hands, unscrewed
the bull's-eye.
Her horror may be imagined when she beheld the countenance of her
husband as pale as death, while blood flowed copiously from his mouth,
ears, and nostrils.
"Niver mind, cushla!" he said, faintly, "I'll be all right in a minute.
This couldn't have happened if I'd had one o' the noo helmets.--Git off
my--"
"Ochone! He's fainted!" cried Mrs Machowl; "help me, boys."
In a few minutes Rooney's helmet was removed and he began to recover,
but it was not until several days had elapsed that he was completely
restored; so severe had been the consequences of the enormous pressure
to which his lungs and tissues had been subjected, by the powerful
working of the pump on that memorable day by Ram-stam and Chok-foo.