, owing to the din. If Rooney had
dropped the lead-soled boots or the shoulder-weights, they would have
sunk at once beyond recovery, and have rendered the descent of the diver
very difficult if not impossible.

Realising all this, the two comrades proceeded with great care and
slowness. Dressing a diver in the most favourable circumstances
involves a considerable amount of physical exertion and violence of
action. It may therefore be well believed that in the case of which we
write, a long time elapsed before Baldwin got the length of putting on
his helmet. At last it was screwed on. Then a hammer and a bagful of
wooden pins were placed in his hands.

"Now, Joe, are ye aisy?" asked Rooney, holding the front-glass in his
hand, preparatory to sealing his friend up.

"All right," answered Baldwin.

"Set a-goin' the air-pumps up there," shouted Rooney, from whose face
the perspiration flowed freely, as much from anxiety about his friend as
from prolonged exertion in a constrained attitude.

In a few seconds the air came hissing into the helmet, showing that the
two men who wrought it were equal to their duty, though inexperienced.

"All right?" asked Rooney a second time.

The reply was given, "Yes," and the bull's-eye was screwed on.

Rooney then sprang up the ladder and through the manhole; took his
station at the signal-line and air-pipe, while the engineer of the works
watched the air-pump. The rickety steam-engine was then stopped, and,
as had been predicted, the water rose quickly. It rose over Baldwin's
knees, waist, and head, and, finally, rushed out at the manhole,
deluging Rooney's legs.

Our diver was now fairly imprisoned; an accident, however trifling in
itself, that should stop the air-pump would have been his death-knell.
Fully impressed with this uncomfortable assurance, he felt his way
slowly down the second ladder, knocking his head slightly against
cross-beams as he went, holding on tightly to his bag and hammer, and
getting down into darkness so profound as to be "felt." He soon reached
the head of the third ladder, and then the fourth.

But here, at a depth of about thirty feet, an unexpected difficulty
occurred which had well-nigh caused a failure. The head of the fourth
ladder was covered with wood, through which a square manhole led to the
bottom of the well. Of course Joe Baldwin discovered this only by
touch, and great was his anxiety when, passing his hand round it, he
found