tle damaged.

It was for the purpose of raising the latter portion of the cargo that
Baldwin and his men had been engaged by Mr Hazlit. Hitherto the divers
had been extremely successful. With the usual appliances of slings,
chains, shears and windlasses, etcetera, they had already recovered a
large quantity of goods, and were still busy in the hold when Edgar went
down.

As we have said, the wreck lay in comparatively deep water--about ten
fathoms. The ladder which descended from the side of the diver's vessel
was not two fathoms in length, so that after reaching the lowest round,
Edgar had to continue his descent by slipping down the rope which hung
from the ladder and was weighted at the bottom with a stone.

On reaching the ground he knelt, set down the lamp, and attached his
guide-line to the stone. While thus engaged he looked with much
interest at his little lamp, which burned as brightly and steadily down
in the depths of ocean as if on land, while, from its chimney the air
which gave it life rose upwards in a constant stream of bubbles. The
water being dense and very dark its light did not penetrate far, but
close to the bull's-eye it was sufficiently strong to enable our hero to
see what he was about. Having fixed the line, he was about to move in
the direction of the wreck when he received one pull on his life-line.
Replying to it with one pull--"all right"--he was again about to move,
when a strange unearthly sound filled his ears, and he smiled to think
that in his interest about the lamp and fastening his guide-line he had
totally forgotten the speaking apparatus connected with his helmet.

"How d'ee git on down there?" inquired the voice, which sounded
strangely mysterious, not to say unpleasant, in his confined metal
head-piece.

"Splendidly," he replied, not applying his mouth to any orifice in his
helmet--for there _was_ no opening into the speaking-tube--but simply
giving utterance to the word in his usual manner. "I've just fixed my
line and am going to move on."

"Go ahead, and luck go with 'ee," was the prompt reply from Joe Baldwin.

We have said that there was no opening into the helmet in connection
with the speaking apparatus, such not being necessary. It was quite
sufficient that the speaking-tube was fastened to the outside of the
helmet, just over a sort of cavity formed inside by means of what we may
style an interior patch of metal. The sound passed _through_ the
head-piece