Part 9 (1/2)

There was a large living room and three bedrooe was a kitchen with kerosene stove and kerosene refrigerator A fifty-gallon druh copper tubing Rick checked the fuel

The tank was full He read the sierator, then lighted the burner There were frozen foods and soft drinks as well as dairy products a their supplies, packed in dry ice in the _Water Witch's_ food locker; the refrigerator would be cold enough for the supplies by the ti in fresh water there was an outdoor shower, a shower head rigged to a five-gallon drum and supported on a fraave privacy Other sanitary facilities were equally primitive but effective

Scotty opened the door of a lean-to shed on the rear of the house ”We can stow our diving gear in here There's a bench, too Looks as though the owner used the place for cleaning fish and stowing his fishi+ng equipment”

They walked around to the front of the house where there was a sainst the wall The boys righted them and sat down

”This is the life,” Rick observed ”Look at that view”

They looked from the porch down to the sandy beach, past the pier and the Sky Wagon to water that was allassy calm The water continued in a smooth stretch for about five hundred yards out to the reef Light breakers foa the reef, and beyond, the water was a blue waste to the horizon A quarter e where boats could enter

Somewhere, out beyond the reef, was the wreck of the _Maiden Hand_ In hisit The first step was to rig so boards Then he and Scotty, equipped with their aqualungs, would be towed behind the _Water Witch_, scanning the bottoboards Any kind of planks would do, or they could even h that would be harder to control

”Coh the palet them now”

By the time the scientists approached the pier, the boys had explored the central part of the island and had returned to the cottage lugging planks found in the ruin of a cottage apparently blon by so-past hurricane They dropped the planks beside the house and hurried to catch the line that Zircon threw, then they warped the _Water Witch_ in to the dock

All hands turned to, and in a short time supplies were unloaded and stored, beds were made with linen and blankets loaned by Dr Ernst, and the cottage began to take on an inhabited look

While Tony Briotti began preparations for dinner, the boys carried their aqualung equipan to check it over Since their lives would depend on proper functioning of the equip the condition of the neoprene flaps Once checked, the regulators were hung on nails on the shed walls, out of harm's way

The next step was to inspect the tanks Rick had already looked theain There were six of thee to this particular capacity at the depth where they expected to dive; a diver could work only fifteendeco enough Double tanks would have , but would also have h the decompression period of about thirteen minutes ten feet below the surface on the ascent For this reason, the boys planned to dive with single tanks, leaving the spares on the surface

Of course, to get even fifteenat twenty fathoms the tanks had to be filled to capacity When full, they were under enormous internal pressure of over two thousand pounds per square inch The tanks had been filled at Spindrift, but the boys decided to check theh the valves during shi+pht and prepared to attach the pressure gauge

Rick, inspecting another tank for buht have weakened the tank wall, saw him do it

For a moment Rick continued his inspection, then what he had seen suddenly registered He yelled, ”Scotty! The valve!”

In that instant, as Scotty attached the pressure gauge, the valve blew out!

The entire valve assee, propelled by the tre clear of Scotty's hand and taking a patch of skin along The ascending asse with bullet speed, clipped a lock of hair from his bent head

[Illustration: _The valve asse with bullet speed, barely missed Scotty's head_]

Scotty yelled, ”Run!”

The tank, its air free to escape, writhed and turned, then fell over on its side It was like an inflated balloon, turned loose to fly around a room Air jetted from it with terrific velocity, so that the tank was, for the period while its air lasted, a true rocket

It struck the wall of the shed and went through it like paper, shtly, so that its trajectory was altered enough to drive it directly at Rick He fell flat and it went over, just grazing hi blow and turned upward, shooting high in the air, clipping off the top of another palm as it went