into view, where the
vessel we are in search of went down."

"An ugly place," remarked Joe, who was steering the boat. "Come boys,
give way. The morning's gittin' on, an' we must set to work as soon as
ever we can. Time an' tide, you know, etcetera."

Rooney, Maxwell, Chok-foo, and Ram-stam, who were rowing, bent to their
work with a will, but the heavy boat did not respond heartily, being
weighted with a large amount of diving gear. Just then a light breeze
arose, and the boat, obedient to the higher power, bent over and rippled
swiftly on.

The only other individual on board was a Malay--the owner of the boat.
He sat on the extreme end of the bow looking with a vacant gaze at the
island. He was a man of large size and forbidding, though well-formed,
features, and was clothed in a costume, half European half Oriental,
which gave little clew to the nature of his profession--except that it
savoured a good deal of the sea. His name, Dwarro, was, like his
person, nondescript. Probably it was a corruption of his eastern
cognomen. At all events it suffered further corruption from his
companions in the boat, for Baldwin and Maxwell called him Dworro, while
Rooney Machowl named him Dwarry. This diversity of pronunciation,
however, seemed a matter of no consequence to the stolid boatman, who,
when directly addressed, answered to any name that people chose to give
him. He was taciturn--never spoke save when spoken to; and at such
times used English so broken that it was difficult to put it together so
as to make sense. He was there only in capacity of owner and guardian
of the boat. Those who hired it would gladly have dispensed with his
services, but he would not let them have it without taking himself into
the bargain.

Having reached the scene of the wreck of the _Warrior_, the party at
once proceeded to sound and drag for it, and soon discovered its
position, for it had not shifted much after slipping off the ledge,
where it had met its doom on the night of the storm. Its depth under
the surface was exactly twenty-three fathoms, or 138 feet.

"It will try our metal," observed Baldwin, "for the greatest depth that
the Admiralty allow their divers to go down is twenty fathom."

"What o' that?" growled Maxwell, "I've worked myself many a time in
twenty-three fathom water, an'll do it again any day. _We_ don't need
to mind what the Admiralty says. The submarine engineers of London tell
us they limit a man t