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Exceedingly dense fogs, as thick as pease-soup, said the English sailors, islands of ice a mile and a half in circumferance, floating mountains which were sunk seventy or eighty fathoms in the sea, such were the obstacles which prevented Frobisher from reaching before the 9th of August, the strait which he had discovered during his previous campaign.
Neb was at the wheel, with orders to spring to the cables as soon as he heard them running out, and everything was in readiness. I shouted the order to "let run," and down both our anchors went, at the same instant, in twenty-two fathoms' water.
"We'll go up together," Clo whispered, "and then, if you really think best to see the man alone, I'll hang about somewhere in the hall till you come out and call me." Beverley made no reply. Already she was fathoms deep in thought. The musty-smelling lift shot them up to the top floor; Beverley, stepping out ahead of Clo, had the air of having forgotten her existence. The girl's anxiety deepened.
Captain Hawkins at once entered into Captain Rounds' views, and they agreed the next morning with their brother captains to set to work. Captain Rounds, who was a very ingenious man, had a diving-bell constructed out of a cask, with pipes to lead the air into it. Proceeding with the boats, we found the ship sunk in six fathoms of water at a spot Jackey and Tubbs pointed out.
The depth within the lagoon-channel also varies much; from 10 to 30 fathoms may be taken as an average; but at Vanikoro there are spaces no less than 56 fathoms or 336 feet deep.
The barometer for some days past had been falling from 29.90, and to-day it was 29.50, with the wind at N.E., which, in the course of this day, increased to a strong gale accompanied with a sea which broke with great violence upon the rock. At twelve noon the tender rode very heavily at her moorings, when her chain broke at about ten fathoms from the ship's bows.
About 4 P.M. our boats came off to us with fresh water; and at night we anchored off the mouth of a river. The 15th we weighed and stood near the shore, sounding all the way, finding sometimes a rocky bottom, at other times good ground, and never less than seven fathoms.
They found three fathoms depth close to the beach, and fifty-five and fifty, two cables' length off. Farther out they did not sound; and where we were with the ship, we had no soundings with a hundred and seventy fathoms line.
I had descended about one hundred fathoms, and was experiencing a strange oppression, as of the forcing together of my bones, when I heard a sonorous voice close below me say! 'If you go any deeper, you will sustain a pressure of twenty atmospheres, and may not get back at all." I looked beneath, and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with extended jaws.
She wore "sneaks" to-day instead of high boots, and she kicked them off without unlacing them. Then, poising on the rail for a moment, she dived overboard on a long slant. She swam under the surface for some fathoms and coming up dashed the water from her eyes to stare about. The black squall had passed. The sea dimpled in blue and green streaks as before.
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