my grasp after trying how long I could stay; and towards the last, after finding that I could easily stay down a minute, I always rose with some small stones or a handful of pebbles from the bottom.
"It's easy enough."
"I can go East and turn pearl diver now," I said, "if everything else fails;" and, quite satisfied with the confidence acquired by my skill in diving, I prepared one night for a venture which rather chilled me as the time approached.
It was a mad plan, and I knew it. I felt that I was quite a monomaniac; but I was blindly determined, and one night found me, lantern-armed, and provided with matches, shut up in the well-house.
I had stolen out about one, with every nerve strung to the highest pitch, and a horrible feeling of dread sending a shiver through me; but I honestly believe that, if at that moment the danger of my task had been twice as great, the bull-dog obstinacy within me would have carried me through.
But the danger was great enough, I well knew, as I set down on the humid floor the load I had brought, and then lit the lantern, and placed it on the framework of the great winch. Then lighting a piece of wax candle, I fixed that on the other side of the well by letting a little of the wax drip on the stout rail.
"So far so good," I said to myself, as I resolutely drove back horrible suggestions, set my teeth, and threw off the ulster I wore, to stand ready in an old football jersey and drawers.
I had thought out my plans to the smallest minutiæ, and made all my calculations; so that, feeling that my only chance for carrying out my task successfully was by going straight on without hesitation, I raised the load I had brought one by one—a couple of fifty-six pound weights, and after seeing that the stop was in the winch, placed them ready in one of the buckets which I had drawn up level with the rail. Then, fastening a string to the lantern, I lowered it down till it was about five feet from the water, fastened the string, and taking out the stop, let the first bucket run down with the weights till I heard it kiss the water with a hollow, echoing splash. As the sound arose I thrust the stop into the cogs of the winch once more, and the bucket was stopped, as I could see, half in the water.
The next task was perilous, but nothing I felt to what was to come, as, mounting the rail, and climbing out on the apparatus, I seized one rope, reached out, caught the other, twisted my leg round, hung for a moment over the shaft, which looked, if anything, more horrible from the dim light below, and let myself glide rapidly down.
It was the task of a very few moments, but long enough for me to be attacked by thoughts such as—suppose the rope broke—suppose the air was foul down below—suppose I could not get back to the surface—answers to which came at once, for I knew that the rope would bear double my weight; that the lantern would not have burned in foul air; and that as to returning I had but
