was the man "with an eye like a blue glass marble," that "never held his
fist or his smile." No other could have written it after the events he
had survived.

Just as Peters inferred to have been the case, the attack on the
_Timothy S._ caught the whole crew of pearl hunters unready. They had
seen no natives at Barange, they kept no lookout, and when Albro stepped
off the ladder that morning of January 22 he left his shipmates
contentedly employed on deck. He never saw any of them again, or--what
might have been a different matter--any part of them. He went down to
the shell bed, and while he was there the black raiders made their sweep
of the schooner.

It is likely the savages took the diving lines for an extra mooring--it
is certain they knew nothing whatever about the apparatus--and Albro's
first warning was the cutting of that air pipe, when he found his
pressure gone and water trickling through the inlet valve. Fortunately,
he was just preparing to ascend and had tightened his outlet to inflate
the suit. Fortunately, too, his helmet was furnished with an adjustable
inlet and he was able hastily to close both valves.

He tugged at his life line, but it drew loose in his hand. He turned
over on his side to look upward, but he could see nothing--only the
vague blue twilight through which the slack coils of his severed air
pipe came sagging. Then he knew that he had been cut off, and the
hideous fear that lies in wait for every diver, amid the perils and
loneliness of the sea bottom seized upon him. He might have popped to
the surface by throwing off his forty-pound weights, but he was aware
that no chance accident could have served him so, and his impulse was to
get away, from schooner and all, to shore. Under water he had some few
minutes to live, perhaps four or five, as long as the inclosed air
should last him. Frantically he began to struggle toward the beach,
yielding to a moment's panic that was to cost him dear.... While trying
blindly to slash free the useless pipe he lost his diver's knife.

* * * * *

The rotten coral burst and sank under footing. Clogging weeds enwreathed
and held him back with evil embrace. A tridacna spread its jaws before
his steps so that he nearly plunged into the deadly springtrap of the
deep. But he kept on up the slope; his keen spirit rallied and bore him
through, and he came surging from the waves at last on a point of rocks
outside the bay w