Caleb West, Master Diver. Francis Hopkinson Smith

had been made in the back of this turtle by lifting out these rough stones. This hole was now being filled with concrete up to low-water level and retained in form by circular iron bands. On top of this enormous artificial bedstone was to be placed the tower of the lighthouse itself, constructed of dressed stone, many of the single pieces to be larger than those now on the Screamer’s deck. The four great derrick-masts with “twenty-inch butts” which had been ordered by telegraph the day before in Sanford’s office were to be used to place these dressed stones in position.

      The situation was more than usually exposed. The nearest land to the Ledge was Crotch Island, two miles away, while to the east stretched the wide sea, hungry for fresh victims, and losing no chance to worst the men on the Ledge. For two years it had fought the captain and his men without avail. The Old Man of the Sea hates the warning voice of the fog-horn and the cheery light in the tall tower—they rob him of his prey.

      The tug continued on her course for half a mile, steered closer, the sloop following, and gained the eddy of the Ledge out of the racing tide. Four men from the platform now sprang into a whaleboat and pulled out to meet the sloop, carrying one end of a heavy hawser which was being paid out by the men on the Ledge. The hawser was made fast to the sloop’s cleats and hauled tight. The tug was cast loose and sent back to Keyport. Outboard hawsers were run by the crew of the whaleboat to the floating anchor-buoys, to keep the sloop off the stone-pile when the enrockment blocks were being swung clear of her sides.

      Caleb and Lacey began at once to overhaul the diving-gear. The air-pump was set close to the sloop’s rail; and a short ladder was lashed to her side, to enable the diver to reach the water easily. The air-hose and life-lines were then uncoiled.

      Caleb threw off his coat and trousers, that he might move the more freely in his diving-dress, and with Lonny Bowles’s assistance twisted himself into his rubber suit,—body, arms, and legs being made of one piece of air-tight and water-tight rubber cloth.

      By the time the sloop had been securely moored, and the boom-tackle made ready to lift the stone, Caleb stood on the ladder completely equipped, except for his copper helmet, the last thing done to a diver before he sinks under water. Captain Joe always adjusted Caleb’s himself. On Caleb’s breast and between his shoulders hung two lead plates weighing twenty-five pounds each, and on his feet were two iron-shod shoes of equal weight. These were needed as ballast, to overbalance the buoyancy of his inflated dress, and enable him to sink or rise at his pleasure. Firmly tied to his wrist was a stout cord,—his life-line,—and attached to the back of the copper helmet was a long rubber hose, through which a constant stream of fresh air was to be pumped inside his helmet and suit.

      In addition to these necessary appointments there was hung over one shoulder a canvas haversack, containing a small cord, a chisel, a water-compass, and a sheath-knife. The sheath-knife is the last desperate resource of the diver when his air-hose becomes tangled or clogged, his signals are misunderstood, and he must either cut his hose in the effort to free himself and reach the surface, or suffocate where he is.

      Captain Joe adjusted the copper helmet, and stood with Caleb’s glass face-plate in his hand, thus leaving his helmet open for a final order in his ear, before he lowered him overboard. The cogs of the Screamer’s drum began turning, followed by the same creaking and snapping of manilla and straining of boom that had been heard when she was loaded.

      Meanwhile between the sea and the sloop a fight had already begun. The current which swept by within ten feet of her bilge curled and eddied about the buoy-floats, tugging at their chains, while wave after wave tried to reach her bow, only to fall back beaten and snapping like hungry wolves.

      The Cape Ann sloop had fought these fights before: all along her timber rail were the scars of similar battles. She had only to keep her bow-cheeks from the teeth of these murderous rocks, and she could laugh all day at their open jaws.

      With the starting of the hoisting-engine the steam began to hiss through the safety-valve, and the bow-lines of the sloop straightened like strands of steel. Then there came a slight, staggering movement as she adjusted herself to the shifting weight. Without a sound, the stone rose from the deck, cleared the rail, and hung over the sea. Another cheer went up—this time from both the men on board the sloop and those on the Ledge. Captain Brandt smiled with closed lips. Life was easy for him now.

      “Lower away,” said Captain Joe in the same tone he would have used in asking for the butter, as he turned to screw on Caleb’s face-plate, shutting out the fresh air, and giving the diver only pumped air to breathe.

      The stone sank slowly into the sea, the dust and dirt of its long outdoor storage discoloring the clear water.

      “Hold her,” continued Captain Joe, his hand still on Caleb’s face-plate, as he stood erect on the ladder. “Stand by, Billy. Go on with that pump, men,—give him plenty of air.”

      Two men began turning the handles of the pump. Caleb’s dress filled out like a balloon; Lacey took his place near the small ladder, the other end of Caleb’s life-line having been made fast to his wrist, and the diver sank slowly out of sight, his hammer in his hand, the air bubbles from his exhaust-valve marking his downward course.

      As Caleb sank, he hugged his arms close to his body, pressed his knees together, forcing the surplus air from his dress, and dropped rapidly toward the bottom. The thick lead soles of his shoes kept his feet down and his head up, and the breast-plates steadied him.

      At the depth of twenty feet he touched the tops of the sea-kelp growing on the rocks below,—he could feel the long tongues of leaves scraping his legs. Then, as he sank deeper, his shoes struck an outlying boulder. Caleb pushed himself off, floated around it, measured it with his arms, and settled to the gravel. He was now between the outlying boulder and the Ledge. Here he raised himself erect on his feet and looked about: the gravel beneath him was white and spangled with starfish; little crabs lay motionless, or scuttled away at his crunching tread; the sides of the isolated boulder were smooth and clean, the top being covered with waving kelp. In the dim, greenish light this boulder looked like a weird head,—a kind of submarine Medusa, with her hair streaming upward. The jagged rock-pile next it, its top also covered with kelp, resembled a hill of purple and brown corn swaying in the ceaseless current.

      Caleb thrust his hand into his haversack, grasped his long knife, slashed at the kelp of the rock-pile to see the bottom stones the clearer, and sent a quick signal of “All right—lower away!” through the life-line, to Lacey, who stood on the sloop’s deck above him.

      Almost instantly a huge square green shadow edged with a brilliant iridescent light sank down towards him, growing larger and larger in its descent. Caleb peered upward through his face-plate, followed the course of the stone, and jerked a second signal to Lacey’s wrist. This signal was repeated in words by Lacey to Captain Brandt, who held the throttle, and the shadowy stone was stopped within three feet of the gravel bottom. Here it swayed slowly, half turned, and touched on the boulder.

      Caleb watched the stone carefully until it was perfectly still, crept along, swimming with one hand, and measured carefully with his eye the distance between the boulder and the Ledge. Then he sent a quick signal of “Lower—all gone,” up to Lacey’s wrist. The great stone dropped a chain’s link; slid halfway the boulder, scraping the kelp in its course; careened, and hung over the gravel with one end tilted on a point of the rocky ledge. As it hung suspended, its lower end buried itself in the gravel near the boulder, while the upper lay aslant up the slope of the rock-covered ledge.

      Caleb again swam carefully around the stone, opened his arms, and inflating his dress rose five or six feet through the green water, floated over the huge stone, and grasping with his bare hand the lowering chain by which the stone hung, tested its strain. The chain was as rigid as a bar of steel. This showed that the stone was not fully grounded, and therefore dangerous, being likely to slide off at any moment. The diver now sent a telegram of short and long jerks aloft, asking for a crowbar; hooked his legs around the lowering chain and pressed his copper helmet to the chain links to listen to Captain Joe’s answer. A series of dull thuds, long and short, struck by a hammer above—a means of communication often possible when the depth of water is not great—told