Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1919-06-20
Ue
FantOrn Diver
BY GEORGE w. LEWIS
1eU~6uUl
NopyHght)

| Big Parkinson stepped OF the raft
and disappeared downward. The
gray-green water Tapped above his
head, few blister-like bubbles
danced and exploded in the tiny swirl
that marked his exit. That was all.
The sepulchered Helena was about to
receive q second visitor from the land
of the living. The slender conduit
that linked the diver with life paid
out rapidly, then suddenly stopped,
| and we knew that Harkinson was
| aboard the wreck.
"Seventy-one feet" drawled Gar
rick.
"A little pale. wasn't heT Queried
| Wenry, keeping watchful eye on the
line.
Garrick looked over to the speaker
as though he had expected the Ques-
ton.
what d'you .s'pose is wrong?' he
said. The faintest trace of anxiety
was in his great, slow voice.
tits COnnOrs-I mean the mysteri'
GUS way Connors' air-tube parted" re-
turned Wenry. II don't believe in
spooks, specially submarine ones but
there amt no more cause for the At
lantic cable coming in two at this
minute than there was for poor Con.
nors' hosea brand new one, too,
mind you-separatin' as it did. It's
queer"
Garrick, listening, spat reflectively
at the last remaining bubble. Watch
ing from my seat in the dingey, !
knew that the two men, whatever de-
malls they might make, were at last
impressed with the gruesomeness Of
their chosen profession-dallying with
dead things under the sea. Mayhap
it was because Connors had been
their tutor, their companion. Indeed,
the old diver had been pretty nearly
everything to them; but he had been
even more to his employers. In his
unaccountable death the world had
lost master-diver, and the company
had lost money. But because John
Connors had been a faithful servant,
the company had paid hard money
that the divers harness-weighted re-
mains might be the first brought up.
Harkinson's signal "up' was of that
nervous, hurry-up sort that tells Of
sudden distress. He had been down
but three minutes. At a similar depth
he usually remained thirty or more,
for he was Hercules, and for him
water-pressure had no terrors.
knew that Wenry, at least-though
for no good reaSOn-fully expected to
see the big diver come up limp and
dead. read his white face like print.
bobbed out Of water a moment later,
both his big red hands were clutching
at the raft as frantically as If some
pursuing monster were about to drag
him down to death.
When his helmet was of, his face
showed mottled and chalky. The
spluttered-out, meaningless fragments
Of speech, and his eyes were fixed in
q terrified stare. Garrick forced half
a pint of whisky down his throat be-
fore anything like coherency could be
restored.
Hes down there-boys-Con !"
The diver clapped his hands over his
recurring vision. "Oh, Lord" he
walled, "think-think of the harness.
Connors, dead sixty-sixty hours
walking and beckoning--"
Harkinson's great strength snapped
like a reed under the strain, and he
dropped forward upon his face, un.
conscious.
When Garrick consented to 60 down
to the Helena, knew that it was be-
cause he needed money-needed 1t
badly. Garrick, unavoidably, had
long been idle; besides, he was en-
gagged, and the girl was pretty and
worthy and the big, slow-spoken diver
knew that he must prepare suitable
home for her. He was Of good, hon.
est sort, was Garrick, and courageous,
too. But had watched his face as
Parkinson, his nerves shattered, re-
lated from sick bed his uncanny ex-
perience aboard the sunken Helena;
and thus I had come to know that,
badly as Garrick needed money, he
needed courage more, if he would sue
coed where Harkinson had failed.
The thing was on his nerves, right
enough; but saw the grip Of his
big jaw, and 1 knew that he was in
deed going down, even though he
might not come up.
There was lot Of wreckage piled
up about the cabin-door," Parkinson
had told us, land I had to squat as
low as l could to pass under it. As
1 raised up, inside the cabin-Con-
nors-dead sixty hours-got up off
bench fixed to the opposite wall Of
the cabin, and came to meet me. Sew
enty-one feet under the sea with a
ghost CQnn0rS-YeS it WAS him all