"I'm glad on it," said the sailor, giving his canvas trousers a slap. "I'm tired o' hanging about the coast as we do. All this diving work's very well, but I want to get out in the blue again." "Tell me all about the upset over the work," said Dutch. "Is Tolly bad?" "Not he, sir," chuckled the sailor. "I'd ha' cured him with a rope's-end in about two twos. Didn't want to go down, and when the skipper turned rusty, and said as how he must, his mates takes sides with him, and say as Mr Parkley wants to send 'em to their death, and then the real sore place comes out--they wants a rise in the pay. `Well, then,' says the skipper, `I'll send for Mr Parkley;' and then Tolly says in his blustering way, `Ah,' he says, `I ain't afraid to go down, and if I loses my life it's all the governor's fault.' So down he goes, and dreckly after he begins pulling his siggle rope, and they pulls him up, unscrews him, and lays him on the deck, and gives him cold grog." "But was he senseless?" "He wasn't so senseless that he couldn't lap the grog, sir, no end; and if he warn't playing at sham Abraham, my name ain't Sam Oakum." Barrport was soon reached, and, boarding a small lugger, Dutch and his companion were put aboard a handsomely-rigged schooner, lying about four miles along the coast, at anchor, by the two masts of a vessel seen above the water. And here it was evident that arrangements had been made for diving, for a ladder was lashed to the side of the vessel, evidently leading down to the deck of the sunken ship, while four men in diving suits lounged against the bulwarks, their round helmets, so greatly out of proportion to their heads, standing on a kind of rack, while the heavy leaden breast and back pieces they wore lay on the planks. "Ah, Pugh," said a weather-beaten, middle-aged man, greeting Dutch as he reached the deck; "glad you've come. When I've a mutiny amongst my own men I know what to do; but with these fellows I'm about done, especially as they say the machinery is defective." "Of course, Captain Studwick," said Dutch aloud, "men cannot be asked to risk their lives. Here, Tolly, what is it?" The diver spoken to, a fat-faced, pig-eyed fellow, with an artful leer upon his countenance, sidled up. "The pump don't work as it should, Mr Pugh," he said. "Near pretty nigh gone--warn't I, mates?" The others nodded. "Is the work below very hard?" said Dutch, quietly. "Well, no, sir, I don't know as it's much harder nor usual; but the copper's heavy to move, and the way into the hold is littler nor usual; ain't it, mates?" "Take off your suit," said Dutch, after glancing at the men at the air-pump, and seeing that they were those he could trust. "It won't fit you, sir," said the man, surlily. "I'm the best judge of that," said Dutch; "take it off instantly."