Part 12 (1/2)

”You've got a filthy h I had paid him the nicest compliment, and the two of them walked away up the wharf

Dancer romped down the necklace of atolls and islands until, a little after three o'clock, I ran the deep-water passage between Little Gull Island and Big Gull Island, and rounded into the shallow open water between the east shore of Big Gull and the blue water of the Mozah breeze to make the day pleasantly cool, and to kick up a white flecky chop off the surface

IGull as I put Dancer in position When I hit the marks I pushed a little upwind to allow for Dancer's fall-back Then I cut the engines and hurried down to the foredeck to drop the hook

Dancer came around and settled down like a wellbehavedlady

”Is this the place?” Sherry had watched everything I did with her disconcerting feline stare

”This is it,” and I risked overplayingout the marks to her

”I lined up those two Palht up on the skyline, see it?”

She nodded silently, again I caught that look as though the infor carefully filed and remembered ”Nohat do we do?”she asked

”This is where Jimmy dived,” I explained ”When he came back on board he was very excited He spoke secretly with the others - Materson and Guthrie - and they seeain with rope and a tarpaulin He was down a long ti!

”Yes,” she nodded eagerly, the reference to her brother's death seeo now, before so at her ”I thought ere going to have a look?”

She recognized her anize it properly, coerinned, ”I didn't come all this way not to take at least one quick look”

”I don't think you should, Harry,” she called after ine-room hatch

”Let's come back another time,” she persisted, but I went down the ladder to the rack which held the air bottles and took down a Draeger twin set I fitted the breathing valve and tested the seal, sucking air out of the rubberquickly up at the hatch tome, I reached across and threw the concealed cut-out switch on the electrical systeines while I was overboard

I swung the diving ladder over the stern and then dressed in the cockpit - short-sleeved Neoprene wet suit and hood, weight bek and knife, Ne the scuba set on ht nylon rope and hooked it on to my belt

what happens if you don't co apprehension for the first time ”I mean what happens to me?”

”You'll pine to death,” I told her, and went over the side, not in a showy back flip but a sinity

The water was transparent as mountain air, and as I went head down I could see every detail of the bottom fifty feet below

It was a coral landscape, lit with dappled light and wondrous colour I drifted down to it, and the sculptured shapes of the coral were softened and blurred with sea growth and restless with the sparkling jewels oftowers of coral, fields of eel grass between, and open stretches of blinding white coral sand

Mythe fact that I had been only just conscious from blood loss I had dropped the anchor ale It lay on one of the open spaces of coral sand, looking like soreen and squat with the loose ropes floating about it like tentacles

I crouched beside it, and shoals of tiny fish, zebra-striped in gold and black, gathered around me in such numbers that I had to blow bubbles at theet on with the job

I unclipped the nylon rope froe with a series of halfhitches Then I rose to the surface slowly paying out the line I surfaced thirty feet astern of Dancer, swam to the ladder, and clambered into the cockpit Ichair

What did you find?” Sherry demanded anxiously

”I don't know yet,” I told her I had resisted the teht be worth the sacrifice to watch her expression as I opened the canvas

I stripped ear and washed it off with fresh water before stowing it all carefully away I wanted the tension to eat into her a little longer

”daet it up,” she burst out at last

I re as heavy as all creation, but then ainst the gunwale and began recovering line It was heavy, but not impossibly so, and I coiled the wet line as it careen canvas broke the surface alongside, sodden and gushi+ng water I reached over and got a purchase on the knotted rope, with a single heave I lifted it over the side and it clunked weightily on to the deck of the cockpit - ainst Wood

”Open it,”ordered Sherry iht away, madam,” I said, and drew the bait-knife from the sheath on le stroke for each

Sherry was leaning forward eagerly as I drew the stiff wet folds of canvas aside, and I atching her face

The greedy, anticipatory expression flared suddenly into triunized it before I did, and then instantly she dropped a curtain of uncertainty over her eyes and face

It was nicely done, she was an actress of skill Had I not been watching carefully for it, I would have missed the quick play of emotion

I looked down at the humble object for which already so many men had been killed or mutilated, and I was torn with surprise and puzzlement and disappointment It was not what I had expected

Half of it was badly eaten away as though by a sandblasting machine, the bronze was raw and shi+ny and deeply etched The upper half of it was intact, but tarnished heavily with a thick skin of greenish verdigris, but the lug for the shackle was intact and the ornah the corrosion - a heraldic crest - or part of it - and lettering in a flowery antique style The lettering was fragular flowing line, leaving the bright worn metal

It was a shi+p's bell, cast in hed close to a hundred pounds, with a doed top and a wide flared mouth

Curiously I rolled it over The clapper had corroded solidly, and barnacle and other shellfish had encrusted the interior I was intrigued by the pattern of wear and corrosion on the outside, until suddenly the solution occurred tosubmersion The bell had been half buried on the sandy bottom, the exposed portion had been subjected to the tidal rush of Gunfire Break, and the fine grains of coral sand had abrased away a quarter of an inch of the outer skin of the metal

However, the portion that had been buried was protected, and now I exa more closely

wnl ”Mere was an extended V or a broken W followed iap and a whole V; beyond that the lettering had been obliterated again

The coat of arms worked into the metal on the opposite side of the barrel was an intricate design with two ra a shi+eld and a uely familiar, and I wondered where I had seen it before

I rocked back on my heels and looked at Sherry North She was unable to ,” I reat brass bell hanging on its nose”

”I don't understand it,” she said