, but he also whaled the Jap for
bad cooking and insolence--which was a mistake. That Jap was an
educated man, a college graduate and a member of the Japanese Samurai,
a curious class in that country that never yield, never forgive, and
kill themselves when defeated. We didn't know this; we only knew that
he was a mighty poor cook.

"After we were around the Cape, Gleason gave me the latitude and
longitude of the spot, and I made for it. It took me two or three days
of careful observations and calculations before I announced that we
were within six seconds of the spot, which is all that navigation will
do. Then we dropped anchor and began to drag. We knotted together every
line we had, and in the middle we had a length of mooring chain that
would stick to the bottom. We kept two small boats, to which this was
attached, a quarter of a mile apart and pulled on parallel lines, and
at last felt a drag; then we pulled together, gathering in the slack,
and when we met, the schooner, under charge of Gleason, came up and
anchored, over the spot.

"I was the only man there who had any diving experience, so I went
down. Say, have you ever been under water in a diving suit, trusting
your life to the fellows above who pump the air into your helmet? No?
Well, it's a curious experience. I had the feeling as I went down that
I was number thirteen of that bunch, and that they only needed to shut
off my air supply to make their number twelve instead of thirteen. But
that didn't happen; they pumped, and I breathed and saw the old
galleon, the _Santa Margherita_. She lay there, heeled over to
starboard, covered with the ooze and the slime of the sea, with
barnacles everywhere.

"I signaled for slack and walked around her, taking note of her rig.
She had three masts, and three tops very much like the fighting tops of
our modern battleships. There were no royal masts, but she had two
sprit-sail yards under the bowsprit and jib boom, and a huge lateen
yard on the mizzen that took the place of the cro'-jack. But her poop
deck was a wonder; five tiers of windows one above the other, and on
top three big lanterns much like the ordinary street lamp. Of course,
all canvas and running gear had rotted away, but here and there was a
leg of standing rigging, preserved by the tar. She was a big craft in
her day, no doubt, but not so big compared with present-day ships; at
any rate I could reach up to her channels, and by this means climbed
aboard.