"Everything is ready, sir," said Captain Joe, as Sanford walked aft to meet him. "We've 'iled up the cylinders, an' the pump can git to work in a minute. I'll tend Caleb; I know how he likes his air. Come, Caleb, git inter yer dress; this tide's on the turn."
The three men walked along the yacht's deck to where the captain had been oiling the air-pump. It had been lifted clear of its wooden case and stood near the rail, its polished brasses glistening in the light of a ship's lantern slung to the ratlines. Sprawled over a deck settee lay the rubber diving-dress,--body, arms, and legs in one piece, like a suit of seamless underwear,--and beside it the copper helmet, a trunkless head with a single staring eye. The air-hose and life-line, together with the back-plate and breast-plate of lead and the iron-shod shoes, lay on the deck.
Caleb placed his folded coat on a camp-stool, drew off his shoes, tucked his trousers into his stocking legs, and began twisting himself into his rubber dress, Sanford helping him with the arms and neckpiece. Captain Joe, meanwhile, overhauled the plates and loosened the fastenings of the weighted shoes.
With the screwing on of Caleb's helmet and the tightening of his face-plate, the crowd increased. The news of the coming diver had preceded the arrival of the yacht, and the trestle and shores were lined with people.
When Caleb, completely equipped, stepped on the top round of the ladder fastened to the yacht's side, the crowd climbed hurriedly over the wrecked cars to the stringers of the trestle to get a better view of the huge man-fish with its distorted head and single eye, and its long antennæ of hose and life-line. Such a sight would be uncanny even when the blazing sun burnished the diver's polished helmet and the one eye of the face-plate glared ominously; but at night, under the wide sky, with only a single swinging lamp to illumine the gloomy shadows, the man-fish became a thing of dread,--a ghoulish spectre who prowled over foul and loathsome things, and who rose from the slime of deep bottoms only to breathe and sink again.
Caleb slowly descended the yacht's ladder, one iron-shod foot at a time, until the water reached his armpits. Then he swung himself clear, and the black, oily ooze closed over him.