Guy Boothby - A Crime of the Under-seas

"This the place!" he cried, as he looked round him at the smooth and smiling sea. "You surely don't mean to tell me that it was just here that the Monarch of Macedonia met her cruel fate? I cannot believe it."

"It's true, all the same," answered the skipper. "That's to say, as near as I can reckon it by observations. Just take a look at the chart and see for yourself."

So saying he spread the roll of paper he carried in his hand upon the deck, and we all knelt down to examine it. In order to prove his position the skipper ran a dirty thumb-nail along his course, and made a mark with it about the approximate spot where he had hove the schooner to.

"Do you mean to say that the unfortunate vessel lies beneath us now?" asked Mr. Leversidge, with a certain amount of awe in his voice.

"As near as I can reckon it she ought to be somewhere about here," returned the skipper, waving his hand casually around the neighbourhood. And then, taking a slip of paper from the pocket of his coat, he continued: "Here are the Admiralty Survey vessel's bearings of the rock upon which she struck, so we can't be very far out."

Following Mr. Leversidge's example we went to the port side and looked over.

"It seems a ghastly thing to think that down there lies that great vessel, the outcome of so much human thought and ingenuity, with the bodies of the men and women who perished in her still on board. I don't know that I envy you in your task of visiting her, Collon. By the way, what are the Government soundings?"

"Seventeen fathoms," answered the skipper.

"And you think she is lying some distance out from the rock on which she struck?"

"I do. The survivors say that as soon as she struck, the officer of the watch reversed his engines and pulled her off, but before he could get more than a cable's length astern she sank like a stone."

"I understand. And now, Mr. Collon, your part of the business commences. When do you propose to get to work? We must not delay any more than we can help, for the other schooner may be here at any moment."

"I shall commence getting my things together immediately," I answered, "and, if all goes well, the first thing to-morrow morning I shall make my descent. It would not be worth while doing so this afternoon."

Accordingly, as soon as our mid-day meal was finished, I had the pumps and diving gear brought on deck and spent the afternoon testing them and getting them ready for the work that lay before me on the morrow. By nightfall I was fully prepared to descend in search of the pearl.

"Let us hope that by this time to-morrow we shall be on our way to Thursday Island with our work completed," said Leversidge to me as we leant against the taffrail later in the evening. "I don't know that I altogether care about thinking that all those poor dead folk are lying only a hundred feet or so beneath our keel. As soon as we have got what we want out of her we'll lose no time in packing up and being off."

I was about to answer him, when something caused me to look across the sea to the westward. As I did so I gave a little cry of astonishment, for not more than five miles distant I could see the lights of a vessel coming towards us.

"Look!" I cried, "what boat can that be?"

Mr. Leversidge followed the direction of my hand. "If I'm not mistaken," the skipper said, "that is the Nautch Girl – Peach's schooner."

"Then there's trouble ahead. What on earth is to be done?"

"I have no notion. We cannot compel him to turn back, and if he finds us diving here he will be certain to suspect our motive and to give information against us."

We both turned and looked in the direction we had last seen the vessel, but to our amazement she was no longer there.

"What does it mean?" cried Leversidge. "What can have become of her?"

"I think I can tell you," said the skipper, "We're in for another fog."

"A fog again," replied the old gentleman. "If that is so we're done for."

"On the contrary," I said, "I think we're saved. Given a decent opportunity and I fancy I can see my way out of this scrape."

Of all the thousand and one strange phenomena of the mighty deep, to my thinking there is none more extraordinary than the fogs which so suddenly spring up in Eastern waters. At one moment the entire expanse of sea lies plain and open before the eye; then a tiny cloud makes its appearance, like a little flaw in the perfect blue, far down on the horizon. It comes closer, and as it does so, spreads itself out in curling wreaths of vapour. Finally, the mariner finds himself cut off from everything, standing alone in a little world of his own, so tiny that it is even impossible for him to see a boat's length before his face. At night the effect is even more strange, for then it is impossible to see anything at all.

On this particular occasion the fog came up quicker than I ever remember to have seen one do. We had hardly caught sight of the lights of the schooner, which we were convinced was none other than the Nautch Girl , than they disappeared again. But, as I had told Mr. Leversidge, that circumstance, instead of injuring us, was likely to prove our salvation. Had she come upon us in broad daylight while we were engaged upon our work on the wreck below, it would have been a case of diamond cut diamond, and the strongest would have won. Now, however, if she would only walk into the trap I was about to set for her, I felt confident in my own mind that we should come out of the scrape with flying colours.

"We must not attempt to conceal our position," I said, turning to the skipper, whom I could now barely see. "If I were you I should keep that bell of yours ringing, it will serve to let Peach know that there is somebody already on the spot, and it will help to prepare his mind for what is to come."

The skipper groped his way forward to give the necessary order, and presently the bell commenced to sound its note of warning. Thereupon we sat ourselves down on the skylight to await the arrival of the schooner with what composure we could command. Our patience, however, was destined to be sorely tried, for upwards of two hours elapsed before any sound reached us to inform us that she was in our neighbourhood. Then with an abruptness which was almost startling, a voice came to us across the silent sea.

"If I have to visit you niggers in that boat," the speaker was saying, "I'll give you as good a booting as ever you had in your lives. Bend your backs to it and pull or I'll be amongst you before you can look round and put some ginger into you."

There was no occasion to tell me whose voice it was. "That's Jimmy Peach," I said, turning to Mr. Leversidge, who was standing beside me at the bulwarks. "I know his pleasant way of talking to his crew. He's a sweet skipper is Jimmy, and the man he has with him, Yokohama Joe, is his equal in every respect."

"But how have they managed to get here?" asked the old gentleman. "Theirs is not a steam vessel, and besides being pitch dark in this fog there's not a breath of wind."

"They've got a boat out towing her," I answered. "If you listen for a moment you'll hear the creaking of the oars in the rowlocks. That's just what I reckoned they would do. Now I am going to give Master Jimmy one of the prettiest scares he has ever had in his life, and one that I think he will remember to his dying day. If he ever finds it out, and we meet ashore, I reckon things will hum a bit."

So saying, I funnelled my mouth with my hands and shouted in the direction whence the voice had proceeded a few minutes before. "Ship ahoy! Is that the Nautch Girl , of Cooktown?"

There was complete silence while a man could have counted a hundred. Then a voice hailed me in reply: "What vessel are you?"

I was prepared for this question. "Her Majesty's gunboat Panther , anchored above the wreck of the Monarch of Macedonia ," I answered. "Are you the Nautch Girl ?"