by H G Wells

"It isn't who's been god," said the sunburnt man "But it's happened --among other things "

I intimated my sense condescension

"It don't leave much for ambition, does it ? " said the sunburnt man

" one men who were saved Ocean Pioneer Gummy ! how time flies ! It's twenty 'll remember anything Ocean Pioneer ? "

The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read it The Ocean Pioneer ? "Something about gold dust," vaguely, "but the precise--"

"That's it," "In beastly little channel she hadn't no business in--dodging pirates 'd put the kybosh business And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong There's places about by Soona where you fair have the rocks about where they're going next Down she went in twenty fathoms before dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, said, in one form or another "

"Survivors ? "

"Three "

"I remember the case now," " something about salvage----"

But word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast down to more ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly "Excuse me," , "but--salvage ! "

He leant over towards me " job," "Tried myself rich man, and got made god instead I've got my feelings----

"It ain't all jam being god," said the sunburnt man, and for conversed pithy but unprogressive axioms At last up his tale again

" me," said the sunburnt man, "and seaman named Jacobs, and Always, the mate Ocean Pioneer And him it set the whole thing going I remember him now, when we was jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence wonderful hand at suggesting things ' forty thousand pounds,' , ' ship, and it's just where she went down ' It didn't need much brains to tumble And he leader first last He got hold Sanderses and their brig; they were brothers, brig Pride of Banya_, and he bought the diving dress--a second-hand one with compressed air apparatus instead of pumping He'd the diving too, hadn't made him sick going down salvage people were mucking about with chart he'd cooked up, as solemn as , at Starr Race, hundred and twenty miles away

" tell you we was happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink and bright hopes all the time It all seemed so neat and clean and straightforward, and what rough chaps call 'cert ' And we used to speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd started two days , were getting on, until our sides fairly ached We all messed together Sanderses' cabin-- curious crew, all officers and no men--and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn Young Sanders was humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was something funny confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, and us see it too 'Jimmy Goggles,' he used it, and talk like Christian Asked if married, and how Mrs Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses Fit you split And every blessed day all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his eye and pour glass of rum in him, until, instead nasty mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice inside as cask of rum jolly times we had in those days, tell you--little suspecting, poor chaps ! a-coming

"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, , and we spent whole day sounding our way towards where the _Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy grey rock--lava rocks that rose nearly water We had to lay off about half mile safe anchorage, and thundering row stop on board And there she lay just as she had gone down, the top masts that was still standing perfectly distinctly The row ended in all coming boat I went down diving-dress on Friday morning directly light

"What surprise ! it all now quite distinctly queer-looking place, light was just coming People over here think every blessed place tropics is flat shore and palm-trees and surf, bless 'em ! This place, for instance, wasn't bit that way Not common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks like ironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things just waving upon them here and there, water glassy calm and clear, and showing you kind of dirty gray-black shine, with huge flaring red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting things going through it And far away beyond the ditches and pools heaps was forest mountain flank, growing again fires and cinder showers last eruption other way forest, too, and kind of broken-- it ? --amby-theatre of black and rusty cinders rising out of it all, sea in kind of bay middle

"The dawn, , was just coming, and there wasn't much colour about things, and not human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down the channel Except the Pride of Banya_, lying out beyond lump of rocks towards the line sea

"Not human being in sight," he repeated, and paused

"_I don't know where they came from, not bit And we were feeling so safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet 'Easy,' says Always, 'there's her mast ' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught up the bogey, and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat round windows were screwed and everything was all right, I shut the valve air-belt to help my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't ladder I left the boat pitching, and all staring down into water after me, as my head sank down weeds and blackness that lay mast I suppose nobody, not the most cautious chap , bothered about look-out at such desolate place It stunk of solitude

" understand that greenhorn at diving None of us were divers We'd had to muck about thing the way of it, and the first time I'd been deep It feels damnable Your ears hurt beastly I don't know 've ever hurt yourself yawning or sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse And pain over the eyebrows here--splitting--and feeling like influenza head And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things And going down feels like the beginning of lift, only it keeps on And 't turn your head what's above you, and 't get fair squint at what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful And being deep dark, let alone the blackness ashes and mud that formed the bottom like going down dawn back night, so

"The mast came up like ghost black, and then lot of fishes, and then lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack with kind of dull bang deck Ocean Pioneer_, fishes that feeding dead rose about me like swarm of flies from road stuff in summer-time I turned compressed air again-- suit was bit thick and mackintoshery after all, rum--and stood recovering myself It struck coolish down there, helped take off the stuffiness bit "

"When I began easier, I started looking about me an extraordinary sight Even the light was extraordinary, kind of reddy-coloured twilight, on account streamers of seaweed that floated up on either side ship And far overhead just moony, deep green blue The deck ship, except for slight list to starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle There wasn't any dead decks, most were weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards two skeletons lying passengers' cabins, where death had come curious to stand deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; place against the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt with widow we had aboard comfortable couple they'd been, only month ago, and now you couldn't have got meal for baby crab off either