We are back again in Hong-Kong--in the pagoda--with our old friends
seated comfortably round their little table enjoying a good supper.
Pretty little Mrs Machowl has prepared it, and is now assisting at the
partaking of it. Young Master Teddy Machowl is similarly engaged on his
father's knee. The child has grown appallingly during its father's
absence! Ram-stam and Chok-foo are in waiting--gazing at each other
with the affection of Chinese lovers re-united.
"What a sight you are, Rooney!" said Mrs Machowl, pausing between bites
to look at her husband.
"Sure it's the same may be said of yoursilf, cushla!" replied Rooney,
stuffing his child's mouth with sweet potato.
"Yes, but it's what a _fright_ you are, I mane," said Mrs Machowl.
"An' it's what a purty cratur _you_ are that _I_ mane," replied Rooney,
repeating the dose to Teddy, who regarded his father with looks of deep
affection.
"Ah! Go 'long wid you. Sure it's your nose is spoilt entirely," said
Mrs Machowl.
"An' it's your own that is swaiter than iver, which more than makes up
the difference," retorted her lord.--"Howld it open as wide as ye can
this time, Ted, me boy; there, that's your sort--but don't choke, ye
spalpeen."
There seemed indeed some occasion for the latter admonition, for Teddy,
unused to such vigorous treatment, was beginning to look purple in the
face and apoplectic about the eyes. In short, there is every
probability that an attack of croup, or something dreadful, would have
ensued if the child's mother had not risen hastily and snatched it away
from the would-be infanticide.
"Now then, Ram-stam and Chok-foo," said Edgar Berrington, putting down
his spoon, "clear away the rat's-tail soup, and bring on the roast
puppy."
Grinning from ear to ear, and with almost closed eyes, the Chinese
servitors obeyed.
While they cleared the table and laid the second course, the
conversation became general. Previously it had been particular,
referring chiefly to the soup and the free circulation of the salt.
"So, then," observed Joe Baldwin, leaning back in his chair, "we must
make up our minds to be content with what we have got. Well, it an't so
bad after all! Let me see. How much did you say the total is, Mister
Eddy?"
"Close upon eight thousand five hundred pounds."
"A tidy little sum," observed Rooney, with an air of satisfaction.
"Eight thousand--eh?" repeated Joe; "hum, well, we'll cut off the five
hundred for expenses and passage home, and that leaves eight thousand
clear, which, according to agreement, gives each of us two thousand
pounds."
Maxwell, who still looked pale and thin from the effects of his late
accident, nodded his head slowly, and growled, "Two thousand--jus' so."
"An' that, Molly, my dear," said Rooney, "if properly invisted, gives
you an' me a clair income--only think, an _income_, Molly--of wan
hundred a year! It's true, cushla! That ye won't be able to rowl in
yer carridge an' walk in silks an' satins on that income, but it'll pay
the rint an' taxes, owld girl, an' help Teddy to a collidge eddication--
to say nothin' o' pipes an' baccy. Ochone!--if we'd only not lost the
first haul, we'd have bin millerinaires be this time. I wouldn't have
called the Quane me grandmother."
"Come, Rooney, be grateful for what you've got," said Edgar. "Enough is
as good as a feast."
"Ah! Sur, it'll be time to say that when we've finished the puppy,"
replied the Irishman, as Chok-foo placed on the board a savoury roast
which bore some resemblance to the animal named, though, having had its
head and legs amputated, there could be no absolute certainty on the
point. Whatever it was, the party attacked it with relish, and silence
reigned until it was finished, after which conversation flowed again--
somewhat languidly at first. When, however, pipes were got out by those
who smoked, and chairs were placed in the verandah, and no sound was
heard around save the yelling of Chinese children who were romping in
the Chinese kennel that skirted the pagoda, and the champing of the jaws
of Ram-stam and Chok-foo as they masticated inside--then came the feast
of reason, not to mention the flow of soul.
"I wonder what our friends at Whitstable will say to this ventur' of
ours," said Maxwell.
"Have you many friends there?" asked Edgar.
"Many?--of course I has. W'y, I suppose every English diver must have
friends there."
"Where is it?" asked Edgar.
"Why, sir, don't you know Whitstable?" exclaimed Joe Baldwin, in
surprise.
"You forget, Joe," replied Edgar, with a smile, "that although I have
learnt how to dive, and have read a good deal about the history of
diving, I am only an amateur after all, and cannot be supposed to know
everything connected with the profession. All I know about Whitstable
is that it is a port somewhere in the south of England."
"Right, sir," said Joe, "but it's more than that; it lies on the coast
of Kent, and is famous for its oyster-beds and its divers. How it came
to be a place of resort for divers _I_ don't know, but so it is, an' I
_have_ heard say it was divin' for oysters in days of old that gave the
natives a taste for the work. Anyhow, they've got the taste very
decided somehow, an' after every spell o' dirty weather they're sure to
have telegrams from all parts of the coast, and you'll see Lloyds'
agents huntin' up the divers in the public-houses an' packin' 'em off
wi' their gear right and left by rail to look after salvage.
"These men," continued Joe, "are most of 'em handicraftmen as well as
divers, because you know, sir, it would be of no use to send down a mere
labourer to repair the bottom of a ship, no matter how good he was at
divin'; so, you'll find among 'em masons, and shipbuilders, and
carpenters, and engineers--"
"Ah!" interrupted Edgar, "I was just wondering how they would manage if
it were found necessary to have the engines of a sunk steamer taken to
pieces and sent up."
"Well, sir," rejoined Joe, "they've got men there who can dive, and who
know as much about marine engines as you do yourself. And these men
make lots of tin, for a good diver can earn a pound a day, an' be kept
in pretty regular employment in deep water. In shallow water he can
earn from ten to fifteen shillings a day. Besides this, they make
special arrangements for runnin' extra risks. Then the savin' they
sometimes effect is amazin'. Why, sir, although you do know somethin'
of the advantages of diving, you can never know fully what good they do
in the world at large. Just take the case of the _Agamemnon_ at
Sebastopol--"
"Och!" interrupted Rooney, whose visage was perplexed by reason of his
pipe refusing to draw well, "wasn't (puff) that a good job intirely
(puff! There; you're all right at last!) He was a friend o' mine that
managed that job. Tarry, we called him--though that wasn't his right
name. This is how it was. The fleet was blazin' away at the
fortifications, an' of coorse the fortifications--out o' politeness if
nothin' else--was blazin' away at the fleet, and smoke was curlin' up
like a chimbley on fire, an' big balls was goin' about like pais in a
rattle, an' small shot like hail was blowin' horizontal, an' men was
bein' shot an' cut to pieces, an' them as warn't was cheerin' as if
there was any glory in wholesale murther--bah! I wouldn't give a day at
Donnybrook wid a shillelah for all the sieges of Sebastopool as ever I
heard tell of. Well, suddintly, bang goes a round shot slap through the
hull of the _Agamemnon_, below the water-line! Here was a pretty to do!
The ordinary coorse in this case would have bin to haul out of action,
go right away to Malta, an' have the ship docked and repaired there.
But what does they do? Why, they gets from under fire for a bit, and
sends down my friend Tarry to look at the hole. He goes down, looks at
it, then comes up an' looks at the Commodore,--bowld as brass.
"`I can repair it,' says Tarry.
"`Well, do,' says the Commodore.
"So down he goes an' does it, an' very soon after that the _Agamemnon_
went into action again, and blazed away at the walls o' the owld place
harder than ever."
"That _was_ a good case, an' a _true_ one," said Joe Baldwin, with an
approving nod.
"And these divers, Mr Edgar," continued Joe, "sometimes go on their own
hook, like we have done this time, with more or less luck. There was
one chum of mine who took it into his head to try his chances at the
wreck of the _Royal Charter_, long after all hope of further salvage had
been abandoned, and in a short time he managed to recover between three
and four hundred pounds sterling."
"An immense amount of money, they do say, was recovered from the _Royal
Charter_ by divers," observed Maxwell.
"That is true, and it happens," said Edgar, sadly, "that I know a few
interesting facts regarding that vessel. I know of some people whose
hearts were broken by the loss of relatives in that wreck. There were
many such--God comfort them! But that is not what I meant to speak of.
The facts I refer to are connected with the treasure lost in the vessel.
Just before leaving London I had occasion to call on the gentleman who
had the management of the recovered gold, and he told me several
interesting things. First of all, the whole of the gold that could be
identified was handed at once over to its owners; but this matter of
identification was not easy, for much of the gold was found quite loose
in the form of sovereigns and nuggets and dust. The dust was ordered to
be sent up with the `dirt' that surrounded it, and a process of
gold-washing was instituted, after the regular diggings fashion, with a
bowl and water. Tons of `dirt' were sent up and washed in this way, and
a large quantity of gold saved. The agent showed me the bowl that was
used on this occasion. He also showed me sovereigns that had been kept
as curious specimens. Some of them were partly destroyed, as if they
had been caught between iron-plates and cut in half; others were more or
less defaced and bent, and a few had been squeezed almost into an
unrecognisable shape. In one place, he told me, the divers saw a pile
of sovereigns through a rent in an iron-plate. The rent was too small
to admit a man's arm, and the plates could not be dislodged. The
divers, therefore, made a pair of iron tongs, with which they picked out
the sovereigns, and thus saved a large sum of money. One very curious
case of identification occurred. A bag of sovereigns was found with no
name on it. A claimant appeared, but he could tell of no mark to prove
that he was the rightful owner. Of course it could not be given up, and
it appeared as if the unfortunate man (who was indeed the owner) must
relinquish his claim, when in a happy moment his wife remembered that
she had put a brass `token' into the bag with the gold. The bag was
searched, the token was found, and the gold was immediately handed to
them."
"Molly, my dear," said Rooney Machowl at this point, "you make a note o'
that; an' if ever you have to do with bags o' goold, just putt a brass
token or two into 'em."
"Ah! Shut up, Rooney," said Mrs Machowl, in a voice so sweet that the
contrast between it and her language caused Edgar and Joe to laugh.
"Well, then," continued Edgar, "in many other curious ways gold was
identified and delivered to its owners: thus, in one case, an incomplete
seal, bearing part of the legs of a griffin, was found on a bag of two
thousand sovereigns, and the owner, showing the seal with which he had
stamped it, established his claim. Of course in all cases where bars of
gold were found with the owners' names stamped on them, the property was
at once handed over; but after all was done that could be done by means
of the most painstaking inquiry, an immense amount of gold necessarily
remained unclaimed."
"And I s'pose if it wasn't for us divers," said Maxwell, "the whole
consarn would have remained a dead loss to mankind."
"True for ye," responded Rooney; "it's not often ye come out wid such a
blaze of wisdom as that, David! It must be the puppy as has stirred ye
up, boy, or, mayhap, the baccy!"
"Take care _you_ don't stir me up, lad, else it may be worse for you,"
growled Maxwell.
"Och! I'm safe," returned the Irishman, carelessly; "I'd putt Molly
betwain us, an' sure ye'd have to come over her dead body before ye'd
git at me.--It wasn't you, was it, David," continued Rooney, with sudden
earnestness, "that got knocked over by a blast at the works in Ringwall
harbour two or three years ago?"
"No, it warn't me," responded Maxwell; "it was long Tom Skinclip. He
was too tall for a diver--he was. They say he stood six futt four in
his socks; moreover he was as thin as a shadow from a bad gas-lamp. He
was workin' one day down in the 'arbour, layin' stones at the
foundations of the noo breakwater, when they set off a blast about a
hundred yards off from where he was workin', an' so powerful was the
blast that it knocked him clean on his back. He got such a fright that
he signalled violently to haul up, an' they did haul 'im up, expectin'
to find one of his glasses broke, or his toobes bu'sted. There was
nothin' wotsomedever the matter with 'im, but he wouldn't go down again
that day. 'Owsever, he got over it, an' after that went down to work at
a wreck somewhere in the eastern seas--not far from Ceylon, I'm told.
When there 'e got another fright that well-nigh finished him, an' from
that day he gave up divin' an' tuck to gardening, for which he was much
better suited."
"What happened to him?" asked Edgar.
"I'm not rightly sure," answered Maxwell, refilling his pipe, "but I've
bin told he had to go down one day in shallow water among sea-weed. It
was a beautiful sort o' submarine garden, so to speak, an' long Tom
Skinclip was so fond o' flowers an' gardens nat'rally, that he forgot
hisself, an' went wanderin' about what he called the `submarine groves'
till they thought he must have gone mad. They could see him quite
plain, you see, from the boat, an' they watched him while he wandered
about. The sea-weed was up'ard of six feet high, tufted on the top with
a sort o' thing you might a'most fancy was flowers. The colours, too,
was bright. Among the branches o' this submarine forest, or grove,
small lobsters, an' shrimps, an' other sorts o' shell-fish, were doin'
dooty as birds--hoppin' from one branch to another, an' creepin' about
in all directions.
"After a time long Tom Skinclip he sat down on a rock an' wiped the
perspiration off his brow--at least he tried to do it, which set the men
in the boat all off in roars of laughter, for, d'ee see, Skinclip was an
absent sort of a feller, an' used to do strange things. No doubt when
he sat down on the rock he felt warm, an' bein' a narvish sort o' chap,
I make no question but he was a-sweatin' pretty hard, so, without
thinkin', he up with his arm, quite nat'ral like, an' drawed it across
where his brow would have bin if the helmet hadn't been on. It didn't
seem to strike him as absurd, however, for he putt both hands on 'is
knees, an' sat lookin' straight before 'im.
"He hadn't sat long in this way when they see'd a huge fish--about two
futt long--comin' slowly through the grove behind 'im. It was one o'
them creeters o' the deep as seems to have had its head born five or six
sizes too big for its tail--with eyes an' mouth to match. It had also
two great horns above its eyes, an' a cravat or frill o' bristles round
its neck. Its round eyes and half-open mouth gave it the appearance o'
bein' always more or less in a state of astonishment. P'r'aps it was--
at the fact of its havin' bin born at all! Anyhow, it swum'd slowly
along till it cotched sight o' Skinclip, when it went at him, an' looked
at the back of his helmet in great astonishment, an' appeared to smell
it, but evidently it could make nothin' of it. Then it looked all down
his back with an equal want of appreciation. Arter that it came round
to the front, and looked straight in at Skinclip's bull's-eye! They do
say it was a sight to see the start he gave!
"He jump up as smart a'most as if he'd bin in the open air, an' they
obsarved, when he turned round, that a huge lobster of some unbeknown
species was holdin' on to his trousers with all its claws like a limpet!
The fish--or ripslang, as one of the men called it, who said he knowed
it well--turned out to be a pugnaceous creetur, for no sooner did it see
Skinclip's great eyes lookin' at it in horror, than it set up its frill
of spikes, threw for'ard the long horns, an' went slap at the bull's-eye
fit to drive it in. Skinclip he putt down his head, an' the ripslang
made five or six charges at the helmet without much effect. Then it
changed its tactics, turned on its side, wriggled under the helmet, an'
looked in at Skinclip with one of its glarin' eyes close to the glass.
At the same time the lobster gave him a tree-mendious tug behind. This
was more than Skinclip could stand. They see'd him jump round, seize
the life-line, an' give it four deadly pulls, but his comrades paid no
attention to it. The lobster gave him another tug, an' the ripslang
prepared for another charge. It seemed to have got some extra spikes
set up in its wrath, for its whole body was bristlin' more or less by
this time.
"Again Skinclip tugged like a maniac at the line. The ripslang charged;
the lobster tugged; the poor feller stepped back hastily, got his heels
entangled in sea-weed, and went down head first into the grove!
"The men got alarmed by this time, so they pulled him up as fast as they
could, an' got him inboard in a few minutes; but they do say," added
Maxwell, with emphasis, "that that ripslang leaped right out o' the
water arter him, an' the lobster held on so that they had to chop its
claws off with a hatchet to make it let go. They supped off it the game
night, and long Tom Skinclip, who owned an over strong appetite, had a
bad fit of indisgestion in consikence."