us letting me
fall back again. He did not understand his duties, and did not know what
my signals on the life-line meant. It was two hours and a half before I
was relieved, and there was not a moment that I was not looking to see the
hose cut by the ragged wood. It's a strange feeling you have down there.
You go walking over a vessel, clambering up her sides, peering here and
there, and the feeling that you are alone makes you nervous and uneasy.

"Sometimes a vessel sinks down so fairly, that she stands up on the bottom
as trim and neat as if she rode upon the surface. Then you can go down
into the cabin, up the shrouds, walk all over her, just as easy as a
sailor could if she were still dashing away before the breeze. Only it
seems quiet, so tomb-like; there are no waves down there--only a swaying
back and forth of the waters, and a see-sawing of the ship. You hear
nothing from above. The great fishes will come swimming about, rubbing
their noses against your glass, and staring with a wonderful look into
your eyes. The very stillness sometimes gives life a chill. You hear just
a moaning, wailing sound, like the last notes of an organ, and you cannot
help thinking of dead men floating over and around you.

"A diver does not like to go down more than a hundred and twenty feet; at
that depth the pressure is painful, and there is danger of internal
injury. I can stay down, for five or six hours at a time, at a hundred and
fifteen or twenty feet, and do a good deal of hard work. In the waters of
Lake Huron the diver can see thirty or forty feet away, but the other
lakes will screen a vessel not ten feet from you.

"Up here you seldom think of accident or death, but a hundred feet of
water washing over your head would set you to thinking. A little stoppage
of the air-pump, a leak in your hose, a careless action on the part of
your tender, and a weight of a mountain would press the life out of you
before you could make a move. And you may 'foul' your pipe or line
yourself, and in your haste bring on what you dread. I often get my hose
around a stair or rail, and generally release it without much trouble; the
bare idea of what a slender thing holds back the clutch of death off my
throat makes a cold sweat start from every pore."

"I suppose you find many beautiful things," said Eric.

"I wish I could describe half the wonderful and beautiful things I find,"
cried Mr. Lacelle.

"There are flowers, the most exquisite that