hand under it and tilted it over
into the basket, to which I was holding on tightly the while.

Then in a blind confused way, with the water seeming to thunder in my
ears, I loosened my hold, and almost directly my head popped out into
the fresh air, and I swam to the boat amidst a furious burst of
cheering.

I felt quite ashamed, and hardly knew what was said to me, for the idea
was strong upon me that I had failed. But I had not, for the next
minute one of the little chests was hauled up and into the boat, my
father leaning over and patting my bare wet shoulder.

"Bravo, Sep!" he exclaimed; and those two words sent a glow through me,
cleared away the confusion, and made me think Bigley a long while down
when he took his turn, I was so impatient to begin again.

He was soon up, another hauled in, and this time I did not let the
weight drag at my shoulders, but plunged with it, went down, shuffled a
chest into the basket more easily, and came up.

Then Bigley obtained another, and suggested that the next dive should be
from the stern of the boat.

He was quite right, and in the course of about an hour we had gone on
turn for turn and obtained nineteen of the chests, so that there was
only one more to recover.

The doctor had twice over suggested that we had been too long in the
water, but everyone was in such a state of excitement, and there was so
much cheering as box after box of silver was recovered, that his advice
was unheeded, and in the midst of quite a burst of cheers I seized the
basket by the handles and took my fifth plunge into what seemed to be a
sea of glowing fire, so glorious was the sunshine as the sun sank lower
in the west.

I knew where the last one lay, just where it had been shot when the boat
overturned, and it was on its side in the midst of a number of blocks of
stone tangled with weed. The boat had been shifted a little, and I came
down right by it, turned it over and over into the basket; but as I did
so I slipped, and something dark came over me. My legs passed between a
couple of stones, and then as I tried to recover myself and rise the
darkness increased, a strange confusion came over me, and then all was
blank till I heard someone say:

"Yes; he'll do now."

My head was aching frightfully, and there was a strange confused
sensation in my head that puzzled me, and made me wonder why my feet
were so hot, and why my father was leaning over me holding my hand.

Then he appea