hisel.

"Motor's all right. It must be the propeller that's wrong. I'm going
down to see," he explained, no trace of excitement on his face, no hint
of flurry in his voice. Alb is a good plucked one, and for presence of
mind and _savoir faire_ I've never met his equal.

As "Mascotte" had slowed down, and then stopped, "Waterspin" came
lolloping alongside. Toon, looking scarcely more flustered than his
superior, kept the barge from bunting into her consort, fending her off
with a pole. Alb, with a rope round his waist to keep him steady at his
work under the water, slid over the side of the boat, and groped about
with his free hand under the water-line.

"There's something round the screw shaft," he called up to Robert and
me. "Queer thing! It feels like a coil of wire. We must have picked it
up in the canal by Dordrecht, and ever since it's been slowly winding
itself round the shaft, until now it's so tight that the propeller can't
work."

"Then all hope's over," I said, with a meaning which he alone--or
perhaps the L.C.P.--could understand. "We're caught in a trap."

"This hammer and chisel will gnaw our way out," he answered. "The game
isn't up yet. Good-by. I've got to work in Davy Jones's workshop."

Drawing a deep breath, he dropped down under water, which hid him from
sight like a roof of thick gray glass. Then, in a few seconds, we heard
a knocking, muffled, mysterious, somewhere below that glass roof.

After a time which seemed long to every one, and an age to me, up came
Alb's head, wet, black, and glittering.

"Wish I had a diver's helmet," he said, when he had breathed; and
promptly dipped out of sight again.

Once more the knocking came. Alb was working hard and loyally for my
interests, and against his own, I couldn't help remembering; but
meanwhile we were floating idly, losing precious time, while the pirate
gained upon us. Fifteen minutes more of this inaction, and he would be
on our backs. I almost wished that he were a true pirate, and that it
might be a war of knives and cutlasses, instead of wits and tongues. I
could be brave enough then; but as a fraudulent nephew detected with his
false aunt, so to speak, in his mouth, what wonder if I felt my heart
turn to water?

Twice more Alb came up to breathe, and dived again. The last time all
was still underneath the water, and a fear came over me that Alb had
knocked his head against something, or got a cramp. But he appeared,
spluttering, and