film which broke against his helmet. The weight on his shoulders became real again, and the massive boots dragged at his feet. Then expert hands unlocked the helmet and detached it from the breastplate, and he filled his lungs with the clean sea air and felt the breath of the sea on his face.
Vogel stood in front of him.
'Perhaps you were justified in calling my former assistant an amateur,' he remarked urbanely. 'Judged by your own exceptional standard, I fear he was not so efficient as I used to think.'
'It's hardly fair to compare anyone with me,' murmured the Saint modestly. 'And so where do we go after the compliments, Birdie?'
'You will go to your cabin below while I consider what is to be done with you.'
He left the Saint with a satirical bow, and went on to give further instructions to the two replacement divers who were waiting to have the straps tightened on their corselets. Simon sat on a stool and loosened the cords and straps of his boots, while his own breastplate was taken off. As he wriggled out of the cumbersome twill and rubber suit he managed to get the instrument in his sleeve into his hand, and during the process of peeling off the heavy woollen sweater and pants with which he had been provided to protect him against the cold of the water he managed to transfer it undetected into an inside pocket of his clothes. He was not dead yet—not by a million light-years. . . .
He fished out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lighted one while he sought a sign from Loretta. The smoke caressed the hungry tissue of his lungs and sent its narcotic balm stealing gratefully along his nerves; and over by the rail he saw her, slim and quiet and desirable in her scanty white dress, so that it was all he could do not to go over and take her quietly into his arms. Even to see her and to desire her in helpless silence was a part of that supreme ecstasy of the return to life, a delight of sensual survival that had its place with the smell of the sea and the reddening retreat of the sun, a crystallisation of the voluptuous rapture of living; but she only looked at him for a moment, and then turned away again. And then he was seized by the arms and hurried down the companion.
Loretta heard him go, without looking round. She heard the feet of men on the deck, and the whine of the winch as the second pair of divers were lowered. Presently she heard Arnheim's fat voice:
'How much longer will this take?'
And Vogel's reply:
'I don't know. Probably we shall have to send Ivaloff down again, with someone else, when Orbel and Calvieri are tired. I expect it will be dusk before we can reach St Martin.'
'Are they expecting us?'
'I shall have to tell them. Will you attend to the telephone?'
Loretta rested her elbows on the rail and her chin on her hands. Her face slid down between her hands till her fingers combed through her hair. She heard without hearing, gazed over the sea and saw nothing.
A touch on her shoulder roused her. She shivered and straightened up, shaking the hair out of her eyes. Her face was white with a sort of lifeless calm.
Vogel stood beside her, with his hands in his pockets.
'You are tired?' he said, in his cold grating voice.
She shook her head.
'Oh, no. It's just—rather dull, waiting, isn't it? I suppose you're interested in the work, but—I wish they'd be quick. We've been here for hours. . . .'
She was talking aimlessly, for the sake of talking, for the sake of any distraction that would reassure her of her own courage. His thin lips edged outwards in what might have been a smile.
'Would you like a drink?'
'Yes.'
He touched her arm.
'Come.'
He led her into the wheelhouse and pressed the bell for a steward. As the man entered silently, he said: 'A highball?—I think that would be your national prescription.'
