The Hero of Panama: A Tale of the Great CanalBrereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir)
General
The Hero of Panama: A Tale of the Great Canal
Brereton, F. S. (Frederick Sadleir)
Panama Canal (Panama) -- Juvenile fiction
She still kept her place, superintending operations, while Tom and Sam
together gripped the tackle, and, having pulled gently at first, began
to haul lustily. In a little while one of the divers had reached the
foot of the weighted ladder. At once the tackle was slacked off, while
all watched the man slowly ascending from the depths, dipping deeper as
the swell rolled the ship, and coming nearer the surface as she returned
to an even keel. Then, with a squelch, the top of the shining helmet
broke through the surface, the man reached the rail, and was lifted
aboard. Sadie proceeded at once to loosen the screws securing the helmet
to the rest of the dress, and lifted the huge metal globe from off the
shoulders of the seated man.
"What luck, George?" she asked impetuously, staring anxiously into his
face, and noticing how tired the man seemed, and how sallow he was. "You
found something? It's going to pay?"
"Not if we work a year at it," came the answer in a dull, despondent
tone of voice. "Help me to get this dress off, Sadie, my dear. I'm
burning in it. I've felt smothered, so hot that I couldn't work down
below. Jim's coming up at once."
The second diver was, in fact, already being hauled up, and anyone who
happened to have watched the first make his ascent from the depths would
at once have remarked the difference between the two. For the diver who
now sat on a box on the swaying deck of the small vessel was bigger
than he who was ascending; at the same time his movements had been far
less active. The one now nearing the top of the ladder clambered up the
rungs with the agility of a cat, in spite of the fact that every foot he
rose made the weights he carried on his back and chest and on his boots
all the heavier. His helmet shot out of the water with a burst, as the
vessel rolled heavily, pulling the ladder up, only to throw it back at
once.
"You hold on dar tight, yo, Massa Jim," shouted Tom, as he leaned over
the rail. "Yo tink dis all a beanfeast. Not so when de ship roll so
much. S'pose yo lose de hold. Buzz! Yo go right down to de bottom and
stay dere fer good. Huh! Come in."
He gripped the extended hand of the diver, hauled the boy aboard, and
promptly seated him on a second box. Three minutes later the helmet was
off, and one had an opportunity of contrasting the young fellow who had
appeared with the diver who had first of all ascended.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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