weaken here.

"Want to leave any address?" says Captain Taylor, cheerfully.

I admit, in my own case, that at this moment I felt a very real emotion.
I watched two lads at the air-pump wheels as if they were executioners,
though both had kind faces, and one was sucking placidly at a clay pipe.
I thought how good it was to stay in the sunshine, and not go down under
a muddy river in a diving-suit.

"Wait a minute," I cried out, and went over the signals again--three
slow jerks on the life-line to come up, and so on.

Now the helmet settles down over my head and jars against the collar. I
see a man's hands through the round glasses crisscrossed over with
protecting wires; he is screwing the helmet down tight. Now he holds the
face-glass before my last little open window. "Go ahead wid de pump,"
calls a queer voice, and forthwith a sweetish, warmish breath enters the
helmet, and I hear the wheeze and groan of the cylinders.

"If you get too much air, pull once on the hose," somebody calls; "if
you don't get enough, pull twice." I wonder how I am to know whether I
am getting too much or not enough, but there is no time to find out. I
have just a moment for one deep breath from the outside, when there is
no more "outside" for me; the face-glass has shut it off, and now grimy
fingers are turning this glass in its threads, turning it hard, and
hands are fussing with hose and life-line, making them fast to lugs on
the helmet-face, one on each side, so that the hose drops away under my
left arm, and the life-line under my right. Then I feel a sharp tap on
my big copper crown, which means I must start down. That is the signal.

I pause a moment to see if I can breathe, and find I can. One step
downward, and I feel a tug at my trousers as the air-feed plumps them
out. Step by step I enter the water; foot by foot the river rises to my
waist, to my shoulders--to my head. With a roar in my ears, and a flash
of silver bubbles, I sink beneath the surface; I reach the ladder's end,
loose my hold on it, and sink, sink through an amber-colored region,
slowly, easily, and land safely (thanks to Atkinson's careful handling)
on the barge's deck just outside her combings, and can reach one heavy
foot over the depth of her hold, where tons of coal await rescue. A jerk
comes on the life-line, and I answer that all is well; indeed, I am
pleasantly disappointed, thus far, in my sensations. It is true there is
a pressure in my ears, but noth