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 shore.
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.