clear, which gave me an
indistinct sight of the bell at the depth of eight fathoms, and I had
been watching it with breathless anxiety for a long time, when suddenly
a small line of air bubbles rose from about the middle of the hose. I
instantly gave the word to the men in the launch to make ready to haul
away, but the two men in the bell made no signal to be pulled up. The
agitation of the sea became greater every minute, and there was a rise
and fall of eight or ten feet of surf against the cliffs. The danger
was increasing, and I was about to order the bell to be raised when an
immense column of air came bursting up from it. It had been driven
violently against the rocks, thrown on its side, and filled with water.

"The next moment I saw the two men emerge from the bell and swim to the
surface. Heans had been entangled in the signal line, but he managed
to release himself, and Dewar bobbed up a few seconds later. They were
too exhausted to say much, but Heans called to his partner, 'Never
mind, mate, we haven't done with the damn thing yet.'"

These plucky seamen went down again and discovered considerable
wreckage of the lost frigate. A Brazilian colonel, with a gang of
native Indian divers now appeared on the scene with a great deal of
brag about their ability to find the treasure without any apparatus.
They proved to be pestering nuisances who accomplished nothing and were
sent about their business after several futile attempts under water.
They furnished one jest, however, which helped to lighten the toil.
The bell was being lowered when one of these natives, or _caboclos_,
slid over the side of the boat and disappeared in the green depths. In
a few seconds, the signal came from the bell to hoist up. Fearing
trouble, the helpers hoisted lustily, and as the bell approached the
surface, something of a brownish hue was seen hanging to its bottom
which was presently discovered to be the _caboclo_ who had tried to
enter the bell. The men mistook him for an evil spirit or some kind of
a sea monster and kicked him back into the water outside, and he could
only hang on by the foot-rail, with his head inside the bell.

The first encouraging tidings was signaled from the small diving bell
on March 27th, when a bit of board floated up from the submerged men
with these words written upon it: "Be careful in lowering the bell to a
foot, for we are now over some dollars." Soon they came up, from seven
fathoms down,