"Yes, yes," she panted.

"That you will neither by word nor deed betray me."

"Yes," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "I swear."

"Thanks, dear one," he whispered. "It is but for a few days. Mind, they have found one of my treasure stores; they shall work for me--for us--in ignorance, and bring it all to the surface. For us, Hester. You need not turn away; I read your heart, and that you will love me as I love you soon, and you shall revel in wealth like an Eastern princess.

But now you must swear more; I cannot wait. I will not have those loathing looks and angry eyes directed at me. You shall swear that you will be mine when and where I ask it of you, or--"

"Are you some fiend?" exclaimed Hester with a look of horror as she saw his foot pressing the tube.

"No," he whispered pa.s.sionately, "only a man whom you have driven nearly mad with your beauty, and who can and will suffer no more. Have you not always been cold and rejected me, even in spite of my prayers? Now I am driven to extremities. Swear that you will be mine, or Dutch Pugh dies beneath your feet."

"I cannot--will not," she faltered, with her senses reeling.

"Cannot! Will not! You must and shall. You know that I have but to keep my foot firmly pressed down for a few moments, and he becomes senseless. And what then? Who in the confusion will know that it was I? Swear it to me, girl, this moment. Hester, I implore, as well as command. Have I not told you my love? Listen to me. Have I not followed you here--done everything for your sake?"

"I will not swear," exclaimed Hester in low, panting tones, and then she uttered a faint cry, which was checked on the instant, as with a look of pa.s.sionate rage that he could not control she saw Laure flatten the tube, and knew that it was to her husband's death.

"Will you swear now?" he whispered. "He is dying. Will you not save him?"

"I cannot, I cannot," she panted. "Oh, it is too horrible. Dutch, my love, it is for your sake. I swear."

"That you are mine?"

"Yes, yes," she whispered; and she swooned away, while Laure removed his foot from the tube.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

RASP'S ADVENTURE.

"Quick, my lads, with a will," shouted Rasp. "Haul! Run him up."

For the old diver had suddenly awakened to the fact that something was wrong below, and at his command the men holding the life-line ran forward along the deck, drawing Dutch rapidly to the surface, where half-a-dozen willing hands, the Cuban's among them, seized him and laid him on the deck, where Rasp rapidly unscrewed the helmet and exposed the young man's face, blue and distorted with strangulation.

"Quick! some more of these things off," exclaimed Mr Meldon.

"You let him alone," growled Rasp. "I'll bring him to in a jiffy;" and, rudely elbowing the doctor aside, he seized Dutch's arms, pumped them up and down a few times, and then forcibly pressing on his breast produced a kind of artificial respiration, for at the end of a minute Dutch sighed, and then rapidly began to recover.

As he commenced breathing more regularly, those surrounding became aware that Hester was trying to get to his side, for, unnoticed in the excitement, she had recovered her senses, and then, pale and sick at heart, crept to the group, where she dreaded to look upon the form of him she loved lying dead.

A look of joy, succeeded by one of intense despair, crossed her face as she knelt down by Dutch's head, waiting to see his eyes open and to hear his words, as she shudderingly recalled the promise she had made to save his life.

She was so behind him that he did not see her, when at last he opened his eyes, and gazed wildly about him as if not comprehending where he was, and directly after he placed his hands to his face as if to feel the helmet.

His eyes opened more widely then, and Rasp held the cup of a brandy flask to his lips.

"Take a sup o' this here, Mr Pug," he said in his rough way.

Dutch obeyed without a word, and his face began to resume its natural aspect.

"That was a near touch, Mr Dutch, sir," growled the old fellow. "You would stop down too long."

"Too long?" said Dutch faintly, as he tried to sit up.

"No, no, be still for a few minutes," said the doctor, who had been pushing up the india-rubber bands of his sleeve, and feeling the sufferer's pulse, to Rasp's great disgust.

"Who said I stopped down too long?" said Dutch faintly, as Hester crouched at his head, with her hands to her face.

"I did," growled Rasp. "You shouldn't have overdone it the first time."

"I did not stay down too long," said Dutch angrily, but in rather a feeble way. "The supply of air was stepped."

"What!" cried Rasp, fiercely.

"I say the wind was stopped."

"Hark at him," cried Rasp, looking round from one to the other. "Hark at that, Mister Parkley, and you, too, captain. Why, I sooperintended it all myself, and the supply never stopped for a moment."

Hester shuddered.

"Here he goes and overdoes it, gets fightin' sharks, and stopping down about twiced as long as he should the first time, and then says the pumping was checked."

"You must have got the tube kinked," said Dutch, sitting up. "Take off these weights."

"_You_ must, you mean," said Rasp, unhooking the leaden pads from breast and back; and while he was so engaged Hester looked wildly round in a desperate resolve to tell all, but her eyes dropped directly as she shuddered, for just at her husband's feet stood Laure, and she felt that she dare not tell the secret that seemed to be driving her mad.

"Here you goes right under the schooner, and must have hitched the chube in the ladder; that's what you must have done."

"There, it's of no use to argue with you, Rasp," said Dutch. "I'm all right again now, thank you, doctor; but I'm sure of one thing: the supply of air was stopped somehow, and I've had a bit of a shaking."

"And I'm sure it just wasn't," growled Rasp. "Everything went just as it should go. There!"

Dutch rose without a.s.sistance, and as he did so Hester, with a sigh of misery, shrank away, feeling that she could never look upon his face again.

"But I have saved his life," she sighed to herself. "I have saved his life;" and then, shuddering with horror, and asking herself whether the time had not come when she had better die, she crept slowly to the cabin stairs, descended, and, sinking into a chair by her cot, sat there and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Dutch smiled with pleasure as he stood up and found that he could take a few steps here and there without feeling his brain reel, for Oak.u.m took off his old straw hat, waved it round his head, and the men gave a hearty cheer.

"It weer too bad o' you though to stop his wind Rasp, owd mate," growled Oak.u.m, in the old diver's ear.

Rasp looked daggers at him, and then proceeded to wipe and polish the helmet, from which he had been removing some grains of sand.

"Have a cigar, Mr Pugh," said Wilson, holding out his case, and then shaking hands, an example followed by Mr Parkley, the captain, and John Studwick, who stood looking at him with admiration.

"I have done nothing but shake your hands for the last ten minutes, Mr Pugh," said the doctor, warmly, "but we may as well shake hands again, though really our old friend Rasp here, with his rough-and-ready means, was princ.i.p.al attendant."