Twenty Fathoms Down

HAWK RIDLEY picked up the yellow sheets of parchment, folded them into a compact bundle, and placed the whole in the pouch that hung around his neck. “I’ll take charge of these things now that we’re under weigh,” he said. “If they’re worth a hundred thousand dollars to Chuck Mercer, they’re worth ten times that to us.”

Captain Steve Gregory gave the receding lights of New York a parting squint and then glanced out across the rain-spattered decks of the Stingaree.

“Judging from past events,” he remarked, “I’d say those things are a good death warrant. Believe me, Hawk, I look for plenty of trouble down off Haiti. It’s my guess that that old galleon has more than a few million in gold aboard her.”

Hawk’s lean, bronzed face relaxed in a grin and he shifted his lanky weight against the charting table. Youth and the anticipation of adventure made his sea blue eyes sparkle. The captain looked at his chief and then his own round, sunburned face also relaxed.

“Doesn’t worry you much, does it, Hawk?” continued Gregory. “You’d think that a diver like you would be having the shakes. Why, boy, you don’t even know what Mercer may have in store for us! Twenty fathoms down is pretty darn—”

“Stokey Watts and I will take care of twenty fathoms,” Hawk interrupted. “All you’ve got to do is to get this tub of rust down into the Windward Passage off Haiti. We’ll do the rest. We’re going to get that treasure this time, Greg, and don’t you forget it!”

Gregory laughed suddenly. “Anyway, you sure gave Al Mercer a send-off! I’ll be a long time forgetting the way that boy took the dive when you threw him down the gangway tonight!”

“He did look funny, didn’t he?” agreed Hawk. “But any time anybody points a gun at me and demands that I hand over anything, I’m apt to get cross. They’ve tried to buy these charts, then steal them, and then to put us out of commission. Lord only knows what they’ll do next.”

The Stingaree’s captain was suddenly sober. “Yes, the Lord only knows. I’m looking for trouble, Hawk. Not that I want it, but I know it’s coming. Al and Chuck made enough sly remarks as to what would happen if we so much as weighed anchor to go after that bullion.”

Hawk looked out across the sea as though his keen eyes could pierce the rain-drenched dark and see the coast which was their goal.

“They’re certainly after us,” he said.

Well, it was enough that the salvage ship was at last putting out for the West Indies with her diving equipment and competent crew. The sailing had been delayed day by day for two weeks. Minor troubles, just serious enough to rasp on the men’s nerves, had occurred with relentless regularity, and the blame had been laid—not without reason—at the door of Ocean Salvage, a rival firm managed by Chuck and Al Mercer.

The bridge itself gave enough indication that trouble of one sort or another was anticipated. Racks of rifles climbed up the after side of the chart room, and ammunition boxes were carefully stowed so as to be handy, yet out of the way.

Even the engines below decks seemed to throb in a subdued, cautious key, as though they, too, sensed danger. The rain, whispering against the steel plates of the decks, added to the feeling of danger ahead.

But though Hawk Ridley and Gregory were keyed up against surprise, the seeming apparition that appeared in the open doorway gave them a shock. For, of all things they expected to see on a salvage ship, a slender, lovely girl in a bedraggled wedding dress was the last.

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