Madge shook her head. "No; Captain Jules is to give them to you and to leave me out. Remember, some stranger gave me a handsome pearl when I graduated. I have never had it mounted." Madge slipped her arm confidingly through the old sea captain's and gazed into his face with her most earnest expression. "Captain Jules is going to do something else for me; he is going down to the bottom of the bay again in his diving suit, and he is going to take me with him."

"What a ridiculous idea!" protested Eleanor. "Just as though Captain Jules would think of doing any such thing."

Lillian laughed unbelievingly, but Phil's face was serious. "It would be awfully jolly, wouldn't it? There wouldn't be any danger if Captain Jules should take you. Do please take Madge down with you, and then take me,"

she insisted coaxingly.

Captain Jules shook his head, but the little captain observed that he did not look half so shocked at the idea as he had the first time she proposed it. This was encouraging.

Phil took hold of one of the captain's hands, and Madge the other.

"Please, please, _please_!" they pleaded in chorus.

"Miss Jenny Ann wouldn't let you," objected Captain Jules faintly.

"But if we were to get her permission," argued Madge triumphantly, "then you would take us down to the bottom of the bay. I just knew you would, you are so splendid! I shall send to New York to see if we can rent a diving suit."

"Never mind about that, I'll see about the suit," promised Captain Jules.

"But it's all nonsense, and I have never said that I would take you. I wish I weren't a sailor. There is an old saying that a sailor can never refuse anything to a woman."

"Here comes Tom," announced Lillian hurriedly.

"Then don't say anything to him about the diving," warned Madge. "He will think it is perfectly dreadful for girls to attempt it."

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

The news that old Captain Jules Fontaine, the retired pearl diver, whose history was a mystery to most of the inhabitants at Cape May, was to take Madge Morton down to the bottom of Delaware Bay with him spread through the town and seaside resort like wildfire. It was in vain that the houseboat party and Captain Jules tried to keep the affair a secret.

There were necessary arrangements to be made, men to be engaged to a.s.sist in the diving operations; it was impossible to deny everything.

At first the plan seemed to outsiders like mere midsummer madness. Then the story began to grow. Cape May residents learned that Captain Jules had found pearls in the bottom of the bay. No one would believe the captain's statement that the pearls were of little value; gossip made the tiny pearls grow larger and larger, until they were fit for an empress.

Captain Jules was besieged at his little house up the bay, although, as usual, he kept the door fastened against intruders. Half the fishermen and oystermen in the vicinity begged to be permitted to accompany the old sea diver in his descent into the water. Captain Jules politely explained that he needed no companions; he was merely going on a diving expedition to amuse two of his friends, Phyllis Alden and Madge Morton, who had a taste for watery adventure. He did not expect to find anything of value in the bottom of the bay. They were going down merely for sport.

There was one person at Cape May who listened eagerly to any tale of the fabulous riches that the old pearl diver was evidently expecting to unearth. He was Philip Holt. The time of his visit at Cape May was rapidly pa.s.sing. Mrs. Curtis was exceedingly kind and interested in her guest, but Philip did not feel that he dared approach her too abruptly with the request for so large a sum of money as five thousand dollars.

Besides, Philip Holt knew that Tom Curtis disliked him heartily. Tom was not likely to approve a man whom Madge mistrusted; nor would Mrs. Curtis give away or lend five thousand dollars without first consulting her son.

So the marvelous tale of the pearls to be found in the Delaware Bay rooted itself in Philip Holt's imagination. Here was another way to get out of his sc.r.a.pe. He was not fond of adventure, but he would do anything in the world for money. Perhaps he could find pearls enough not only to pay his debt, but to make him rich forever afterward.

Quietly, and without a word to any one, Philip Holt made a secret visit to the house of the three sails. He implored Captain Jules to make him his diving companion. He attempted to bribe him with sums of money that he did not possess. He even threatened the old sailor that he would make investigations about his life and expose any secrets that the captain might wish to keep. Captain Jules only laughed at these threats. He was not going down in the bay for treasures, he declared. He expected to find absolutely nothing of any value. Positively he would not allow any one to accompany him but the two girls.

Madge and Phyllis had a hard fight to persuade Miss Jenny Ann to give her consent to their plan for playing mermaid. But she was getting so accustomed to the exciting adventures of her girls that, when Captain Jules a.s.sured her there was really no special danger, so long as he kept a close watch on the diver with him, she finally agreed to the scheme.

Captain Jules gave the two girls every kind of instruction in the art of diving that he thought necessary, and the day of the great watery adventure was set for the week ahead.

On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, Madge awoke at daybreak. She felt a delicious, shivery thrill pa.s.s over her that was one part fear and the other part rapture.

"Phil," she whispered a few seconds later, when she heard her chum stirring in the berth above her, "can you feel fins growing where your feet are? Your flop in the bed sounded as though you were a real mermaid!

Just think, at ten o'clock sharp we are going down to explore a new world! I wonder if there were ever any girl divers before? You are awfully good to let me go down first."

"No, I am not," answered Phil soberly. "If there is any danger, I am letting you go down to it first. But I shall watch above the water, with all my eyes, to see that everything goes right. The captain has explained the whole business of diving to us so thoroughly that I believe I can tell if anything is wrong with you below the surface. You'll be careful, won't you, Madge? You know you are usually rather reckless. Don't stay down too long."

"Oh, Captain Jules won't let me be reckless this time. We are not going down into very deep water, anyway, and a professional diver can stay under several hours when the water is only about five fathoms deep."

Madge and Phyllis ate a very light breakfast. Captain Jules had told them that a diver must never go down into the water on a full stomach, as it would make him too short-winded. While the two prospective divers were eating poor Miss Jenny Ann was wondering what had ever induced her to give her consent to so mad an enterprise as this diving.

Every effort had been made to keep a crowd away from the pier from which Captain Jules meant to send out the boats with the tenders, who were the men to look after the safety of Madge and himself.

As the girls came up, with Miss Jenny Ann, to join Captain Jules they saw twenty or thirty people about. Mrs. Curtis and Tom, accompanied by Philip Holt, had come down to the pier. Mrs. Curtis would hardly speak to Madge, she was so angry at the risk she believed the little captain was running.

She and Madge had not been very friendly since they had disagreed so utterly in Madge's report of the real character and name of Philip Holt.

Madge and Phyllis each wore a close fitting, warm woolen dress. Madge had tucked up her red-brown curls into a tight knot. Her eyes were glowing, but her face was white and her lips a little less red when Captain Jules came forward to fasten her into her diving suit.

"Don't attempt it, Madge, if you are frightened," urged Miss Jenny Ann, who was feeling dreadfully frightened herself. "I am sure Captain Jules will forgive you if you back out."

Captain Jules looked at Madge searchingly. Her eyes smiled bravely into his, although her heart was going pit-a-pat.

"Miss Madge is not afraid," answered Captain Jules curtly. "Robert Morton's daughter has no right to know fear."

Madge first slipped her feet into a pair of heavy leather boots. She gave a gay laugh as she slipped into her rubber cloth suit, which was made in one piece. "I feel just like a walrus," she confided to Tom Curtis, who was watching her with set lips.

Then Madge and Captain Jules, who was in exactly the same costume, got into their boats and moved out a little distance from the sh.o.r.e.

Tom Curtis had asked Captain Jules's consent to sit in one of the boats with Phil. At the last moment Philip Holt stepped calmly into the other.

No one stopped to argue with him, or to thrust him out; the whole party was too much excited.

Not for all the pearls in all the seas would Captain Jules Fontaine have allowed one hair of Madge's head to be injured. But he really did not believe that she would be in any danger under the water with him. He had arranged every detail of the diving perfectly. He would watch her every movement at the bottom of the bay. To tell the truth, Captain Jules was immensely proud of Madge's and Phil's bravery in desiring to accompany him.

The final moment for the dive arrived. Madge waved her hand to the crowd of her friends lining the sh.o.r.e. She flung back her head and looked gayly, triumphantly, up at the blue sky above her, with its sweep of white, sailing clouds. Below her the water looked even more deeply blue.

"Remember, Madge," whispered Captain Jules calmly, "the one quality a diver needs more than anything else is presence of mind. Keep a clear head under the water and nothing shall harm you, I swear. But above all, don't forget your signals."

With his own hands Captain Jules fastened the bra.s.s corselet about Madge's slender neck and set a big copper helmet which he screwed over her head to her corselet. Madge then surveyed the world only through the gla.s.s windows at each side of her head and in front. Her air-tube entered her helmet at the back. Two men in one of the boats were to keep the young girl diver supplied with oxygen by pumping fresh air down through this tube.

A moment later Captain Jules stood rigged in the same costume as Madge.

"Steady, my girl," Captain Jules warned her.

"Aye, aye, Captain," returned Madge quietly, "I'm ready. Let us go down together to the bottom of the bay."

"Pump away," ordered the captain.

There was a splash on the surface of the clear water, a long-drawn gasp from Madge's friends; then a few bubbles rose. Rapidly, skillfully, Madge's tenders played out her life and pipe lines, and Madge Morton disappeared from the world of men. Captain Jules made his plunge a few seconds in advance of his companion.

In the boat where Tom Curtis and Phyllis Alden sat there was a breathless, intense silence. The boy and girl happened to be in the boat with the men who were looking out for the welfare of Captain Jules.

Philip Holt was with Madge's tenders.