White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-04-18

Jessica.'
mo, I'm in lovely glow and I'd
rather have plunge than not. Let's
have your electric torch, Gardy 1t will
keep going as long as care to- The
trouble is going to be finding something
about the corvette to catch turn on"
Doctor White handed her the torch
with Wad of cotton into which he
had worked vaseline. plug your ears
and nostrils, Jessica. Don't take a
chance with earache a few days later"
"All right. The pearl divers use wax,
you know, but this ought to answer.
We are directly over the wreck, I think
This little patch of kelp lifts up from
it. Wet the line, Gardy so there will be
no tug on it,"
Doctor White picked up the coil of
new bag ballard stuff and soused it
her long WOODEN gown and taking the
end of the line, threw a loose bowline
hitch in it and slipped her cleaning
arm through the blight.
We'll here goes, Gardy-" She fixed
the rim OF her rubber bathing cap Sc
curely under her ears and took a few
deep, rapid inhalations, the more thor
oughly to oxygenate her blood. Then,
filling her lungs moderately, she kissed
her hand to the anxious doctor and
went down head first. like the sea OF
ter that her supple body suggested,
and leaving no more of connection
where the brine enveloped her.
Doctor White leaned over the gun
vale of the boat, paying out the line
and trying vainly to follow with his
vision the downward course of the
white limbs. The kelp fronds stirred
and eddied and spread out to curtain
what was underneath them. The snaky
coils of the line Strengthened like cir
cular spring stretched out. A few bub-
hles came gyrating upward.
Then all at once there was start
ling illumination down there below, a
bright blur of light that moved along
in curve with wavy punctuation from
each stroke of the arm that was hold
ing the torch. The effect of it was
Wierd, yet extremely reassuring to the
doctor, because it signaled the vigor-
GUS movements of the diver
!. Doctor White could see the dark
mass that was described by this radi-
ance, but the abundant growth of sub
marine vegetation masked it's charac-
seemed like as many minutes, the doc
seemed like as manyminutes ], the doc
tor was about to give an admonitory
tug on the line, when the light was
quenched suddenly. At the same in
stance he discovered Jessica coming up
with speed.
She bobbed out of the water bosom
high, expelled the exhausted air from
her lungs, refreshed them with a gasp
or two, then laughed. But even in his
relief at her temperance Doctor
White observed that she was clear of
the line, and that it's trend was down.
ward at an angle
"Are you all right, Jessica?" he
asked.
She nodded.
"Then climb aboard and put on your
wrapper, before you catch cold"
"Let me get my breath I'm CATCH
ing gold'
"The deuce you are! Is the line
fast?"
"All fast, sir. landed on ragged
hole about the size of your head near
the cardboard strake. Where she pumped
down on sharp rock, I should say.
The swell must have bumped her up
and down on it along the length OF
her. She seemed all gouged and stove
in abaft it. I caught the blight of the
line around what seemed to be shat
tered butt. 1t ought to hold, I think"
"You certainly are living wonder,
Jessica."
Nothing hard about it. never no.
ticed the cold" She slanted her head.
"Listen-theres a boat"
ooh, never mind the boat. They're
passing all the time Climb in"
The doctor dropped down on
thwart showing himself against the
other side to balance her Jessica, with
a downward thrust of her strong round
arms, raised herself across the gunwale
and backward to the thwart then
swung her legs in after her Then all
at once she seemed to petrify, staring
into the fog that had thinned bit.
Look Gardy!" she gasped in unmis-
taxable alarm, paling visibly
Doctor White glanced over his Shout
der, vexedly. This would be the diver
from Friendship, who had preferred to
wait for daylight before starting round
Pemaquid point. The doctor wished
that the man had come little earlier
or little later. 1t annoyed him to be
found apparently in the act of employ
ing his beautiful ward, Capt Warren
Poole'S daughter, as one might make