'But the batteries were primed, they were ready and waiting: you would have been blasted from the water.'
'Exactly so. But I did not know that at the time. I gave the order with the purest virtue, so that the expedition's success should not be compromised and so that the French and their ally should quite certainly be deprived of their money. I am amazed at my own magnanimity.'
'Parson asks can he come in now,' said Killick in a sharper and more disagreeable tone than usual. He looked at the back of Captain Aubrey's head with a very sour expression and made a disrespectful gesture, muttering the word magnanimity under his breath.
'Come in, my dear sir, come in,' said Jack, rising to greet Mr Martin. 'I was just saying to the Doctor that this was a tolerably whimsical situation, with a crew of paupers floating over a fortune, knowing it to be there, seeing its coffer as you might say, and yet unable to reach it. Killick, bear a hand with that coffee, d'ye hear me now?'
'Very whimsical indeed, sir,' said Martin.
Killick brought the coffee-pot, setting it down with a sniff; and after a short silence Stephen said 'I am an urinator.'
'Really, Stephen,' exclaimed Jack, who had a great respect for the cloth. 'Recollect yourself.'
'It is well known that I am an urinator,' said Stephen, looking at him firmly, 'and in recent hours I have felt a great moral pressure on me to dive.' It was quite true: no one had openly suggested anything of the kind, and after Hairabedian's fate no one could decently even hint at it, but he had observed many low-voiced conferences, and he had intercepted many glances directed at his diving-bell, now stowed upon the booms- glances as eloquent as those of a dog. 'So with your permission I propose descending as soon as John Cooper shall have reassembled the bell. My plan is to attach hooks to the openings in the galley's deck, which being hauled upon will break up the floor-boards, revealing all that lies below. But I need a companion, a mate, to help me with the necessary manoeuvres.'
'I too am an urinator,' said Martin, 'and I am thoroughly accustomed to the bell. I should be happy to go with Dr Maturin.'
'No, no, gentlemen,' cried Jack. 'You are very good - infinitely generous - but you must not think of such a thing for a moment. Consider the danger; consider poor Hairabedian's end.'
'We do not intend going out of the bell,' said Stephen.
'But may not the sharks come into it?' 'I doubt that: and even if they were to do so, sure we ;hould induce them to go out again, with an iron prong, or maybe with a horse-pistol.'
'That's right,' said Killick, and to cover the remark he let fall a dish, retiring with the pieces.
On going below to attend the Captain's dinner Stephen had left a dismal deck, full of tired, deeply disappointed men, gasping-hot, apt to quarrel with one another and with the Turks; he returned to find sunny faces, affectionate looks, a holiday atmosphere, laughter fore and aft, his bell beautifully put together, ready to be swung clear of the rail and lowered; its glass had been newly polished and a series of beckets within held six loaded pistols and two boarding-pikes, while a variety of hooks, tackles, lines and ropes lay neatly coiled upon the bench. But the laughter stopped and the mood changed entirely when what had been in prospect became immediate reality. 'Should you not wait until the evening, sir?' asked Bonden as Stephen prepared to get into the bell, and it was clear from their serious, concerned faces that he was speaking for a good many of the crew.
'Nonsense,' said Stephen. 'Remember, now, at two fathoms we pause and renew the air.'
'Perhaps we should try with a couple of midshipmen first,' said the purser.
'Mr Martin, pray take your seat in the usual place,' said Stephen. 'James Ogle,' - this to the man in charge of the pair of barrels - 'mind you do not let us want for air.'
There was no fear of that. The cranks whipped round as though for James Ogle's own salvation, and the bell had not sunk its first gentle two fathoms before the fresh air was there, ready to be let in. Everything that anxious care on board could do was done, and twenty picked hands with muskets lined the side; but there was little that could be done apart from tending the tackles, and there was not a man aboard who did not feel sick with apprehension when a huge fish, thirty-five to forty feet long, glided between them and the bell, far too deep for any musket. It turned above the glass, darkening the day. 'That must be the big carcharodon,' said Stephen, looking up. 'Let us see what he will make of this.' He reached for the cock and let out a furious bubbling stream of used air. In a single swift movement the shark turned its vast bulk and was seen no more.
'I wish he had stayed a little longer,' said Martin, reaching down for the hose from the next barrel. 'Poggius says he is excessively rare.' He raised the tube and the compressed air hissed into the descending bell, driving the few inches of water that had entered it down to the rim. 'I believe this is the clearest day we have ever had.'
'I am sure you are right. I never have made an ascent in an air balloon, alas, but I imagine it to give this same immaterial floating even dreamlike sensation. There is a small Chlamys heterodontus.'
A few minutes later the bell settled on the galley's deck, neatly placed abaft the rowers' benches and just over the after hatchway, whose grating had floated off.
Time passed: interminable for those above, quite short for those below.
'What can they be at?' cried Jack at last. 'What can they be at?' There was no signal from the bell, no sign of life apart from the streams of air that made the surface boil and froth from time to time. 'How I wish I had never let them go.'
'Perhaps,' said Martin, after their tenth attempt at connecting line, hook and tackle, 'perhaps we might send up a message desiring them to lower down a stout hook already tied to its necessary ropes and pulleys.'
'I am very unwilling that they should suppose I am not the complete seaman,' said Stephen. 'Let us try just once again.'
'There are two young tiger-sharks peering through the glass,' observed Martin.
'No doubt, no doubt,' said Stephen testily. 'I do beg you will pay attention, and pass the rope through this loop, while I hold it open.'
Through the loop or not, the assembly would not hold, and the shameful message, written with an iron stylus
