Under The Waves

CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCES OUR HERO, ONE OF HIS ADVISERS, AND SOME OF HIS DIFFICULTIES.

"So, sir, it seems that you've set your heart on learning something of
everything?"

The man who said this was a tall and rugged professional diver. He to
whom it was said was Edgar Berrington, our hero, a strapping youth of
twenty-one.

"Well--yes, I have set my heart upon something of that sort, Baldwin,"
answered the youth. "You see, I hold that an engineer ought to be
practically acquainted, more or less, with everything that bears, even
remotely, on his profession; therefore I have come to you for some
instruction in the noble art of diving."

"You've come to the right shop, Mister Edgar," replied Baldwin, with a
gratified look. "I taught you to swim when you wasn't much bigger than
a marlinespike, an' to make boats a'most before you could handle a
clasp-knife without cuttin' your fingers, an' now that you've come to
man's estate nothin'll please me more than to make a diver of you.
But," continued Baldwin, while a shade clouded his wrinkled and
weatherbeaten visage, "I can't let you go down in the dress without
leave. I'm under authority, you know, and durstn't overstep--"

"Don't let that trouble you," interrupted his companion, drawing a
letter from his pocket; "I had anticipated that difficulty, and wrote to
your employers. Here is their answer, granting me permission to use
their dresses."

"All right, sir," said Baldwin, returning the letter without looking at
it; "I'll take your word for it, sir, as it's not much in my line to
make out the meanin' o' pot-hooks and hangers.--Now, then, when will you
have your first lesson?"

"The sooner the better."

"Just so," said the diver, looking about him with a thoughtful air.

The apartment in which the man and the youth conversed was a species of
out-house or lumber-room which had been selected by Baldwin for the
stowing away of his diving apparatus and stores while these were not in
use at the new pier which was in process of erection in the neighbouring
harbour. Its floor was littered with snaky coils of india-rubber
tubing; enormous boots with leaden soles upwards of an inch thick;
several diving helmets, two of which were of brightly polished metal,
while the others were more or less battered, dulled, and dinted by hard
service in the deep. The walls were adorned with large damp
india-rubber dresses, which suggested the idea of baby-giants who had
fallen into the water and been sent off to bed while their costumes were
hung up to dry. In one corner lay several of the massive breast and
back weights by which divers manage to sink themselves to the bottom of
the sea; in another stood the chest containing the air-pump by means of
which they are enabled to maintain themselves alive in that
uncomfortable position; while in a third and very dark corner, an old
worn-out helmet, catching a gleam from the solitary window by which the
place was insufficiently lighted, seemed to glare enviously out of its
goggle-eyes at its glittering successors. Altogether, what with the
strange spectral objects and the dim light, there was something weird in
the aspect of the place, that accorded well with the spirit of young
Berrington, who, being a hero and twenty-one, was naturally romantic.