‘Twas a cold day, but clear, only there was a big sea runnin’, makin’ it dangerous, everybody said, to be lyin’ alongside her.  And, I suppose because o’ that, my boy wanted to do the divin’, but ’twas me that went down and fastened the chains so she wouldn’t slip off into the deep water; and then I came up to rest, and it was while I was up restin’ that the chains slipped and she slid off and on to a ledge twenty fathoms down.  Twenty fathoms is deep water for divin’—­but one or two ’d been that deep before, and what one man has done another can do—­and I’d promised the mother to bring her son home to her.

I went down and made fast the chains again, and then I went inside her to make one job of it, though I’d told the lad I’d come up after I’d made fast the chains.  I needed no pilot—­I’d been on her often enough—­though I did find use for the patent electric hand-light I’d carried.  Down the big staircase I went, through the big saloon, and toward his quarters I felt my way—­through the fine cabin and the marble bath-room and his own room—­all as rich and comfortable as in his own home ashore.

It was deep down, as I said—­maybe too deep to be stayin’ so long—­but I’d never known what it was to give up on a job, and I kept on.

I found him ... and he wasn’t alone.

And hard enough it was on me, for never a hint had I of it.  ’Twas my boy hauled me up that day.  No signal o’ mine, but I was gone so long he feared I’d come to harm below.

When I found myself better I made ready to go down again, for once you’ve promised to do a thing there’s nothin’ but to do it.  But just as they were about to slip my helmet on, me with my foot on the ladder, the chain that was holding her slipped again, and into two hundred fathoms she went—­too deep for any diver in this world ever to raise her.

I thought of his mother and I grieved for her, and it was the first job, too, that ever I’d messed.

“Never mind,” says my son.  “Twas me, not you.  Nobody that knows you, father, will blame you.”  A great lad that, and his brother, too—­off their mother’s model—­both of ’em.  Sarah said I’d never have to worry about them, and I haven’t, but I wish she’d lived to have the joy of them.

I don’t remember much more of that, but when I got back to the office there was a letter from her.  But I never read it.  Nothing it could tell me then that I hadn’t already guessed.

‘Isn’t often now it comes so to me, things being’ generally dim in my mind, as I say, slipping away and drawing nigh, like ships in a lifting fog-but to-day—­like that day—­a winter’s day and sunny and cold—­with the seas running like white-maned ponies before the gale in the bay below there—­as it is now—­always on a day like this it comes clearer to me.

LAYING THE HOSE-PIPE GHOST