When Caleb, completely equipped, stepped on the top round of the ladder fastened to the yacht’s side, the crowd climbed hurriedly over the wrecked cars to the stringers of the trestle to get a better view of the huge man-fish with its distorted head and single eye, and its long antennæ of hose and life-line. Such a sight would be uncanny even when the blazing sun burnished the diver’s polished helmet and the one eye of the face-plate glared ominously; but at night, under the wide sky, with only a single swinging lamp to illumine the gloomy shadows, the man-fish became a thing of dread,—a ghoulish spectre who prowled over foul and loathsome things, and who rose from the slime of deep bottoms only to breathe and sink again. Caleb slowly descended the yacht’s ladder, one iron-shod foot at a time, until the water reached his armpits. Then he swung himself clear, and the black, oily ooze closed over him. Captain Joe leaned over the yacht’s rail, the life-line wound about his wrist, his sensitive hand alert for the slightest nibble of the man-fish. These nibbles are the unspoken words of the diver below to his “tender” above. His life often depends on these being instantly understood and answered. For the diver is more than amphibious; he is twice-bodied,—one man under water, one man above, with two heads and four hands. The connecting links between these two bodies—these Siamese twins—are the life-line and signal-cord through which they speak to each other, and the air-hose carrying their life-breath. As Caleb dropped out of sight the crew crowded to the yacht’s rail, straining their eyes in the gloom. In the steady light of the lantern they could see the cord tighten and slacken as the diver felt his way among the wreckage, or sank to the bottom. They could follow, too, the circle of air bubbles floating on the water above where he worked. No one spoke; no one moved. An almost deathly stillness prevailed. The only sounds were the wheezing of the air-pump turned by the sailor, and the swish of the life-line cutting through the water as the diver talked to his tender. With these were mingled the unheeded sounds of the night and of the sea,—the soft purring of the tall grasses moving gently to and fro in the night-wind, and the murmuring of the sluggish water stirred by the rising tide and gurgling along the yacht’s side on its way to the stern. “Has he found them yet, Captain Joe?” Sanford asked, after some moments, under his breath. “Not yet, sir. He’s been through one car, an’ is now crawlin’ through t’other. He says they’re badly broke up. Run that air-hose overboard, sir; let it all go; he wants it all. Thank ye. He says the men are in their bunks at t’other end, if anywheres; that’s it, sir.” There came a quick double jerk, answered by one long pull. “More air, sir,—_more air_!” Captain Joe cried in a quick, rising voice. “So-o, that’ll do.”