Hmmm ... Nothing yet at about one hundred feet, but then I didn't expect anything. I mean, Cheng Shih would have had some pretty expert divers working on this thing. No, so back up to prepare the bell.
As the bell is being readied, there is an unlooked-for setback. From behind me I hear a thud, a cry, and a splash, and I turn to see that Chi-chi, who had been lurking nearby, attentively awaiting any order from Cheng Shih, had been struck and knocked over by the boom as it was being swung over the deck to pick up the bell. I look over the side just in time to see him and the soles of his slippered feet disappear below the surface.
I wait a second to see if any will go to his aid. None do.
Damn! At least this time I'm dressed for it. I arc myself over the rail and dive into the water.
The water, although not as clear as those blue-green Caribbean waters, is clear enough for me to see him sinking down, down, ever farther down into the depths, his pigtail sticking straight up from his head, his arms and legs thrashing about in panic.
What no sailor—be he Chinese or Brit—seems to know is that if you have a lungful of air and hold it tight within you and stop struggling, you'll bob right back up to the surface. 'Tis plain that Chi-chi, also, does not know that, for he flails away in vain, sinking ever lower.
I follow the stream of silver bubbles that leads down to him, grab his pigtail, then kick hard to bring us both back to the surface. When he hits the air, he sputters and coughs, and pukes up great quantities of saltwater. His eyes roll about wildly, but he seems all right otherwise. I get us to the ladder that's rigged on the side of the Lorelei Lee, and hands reach down to pull him aboard.
I expected some expressions of joy at the rescue of what has to be a valued servant, but I hear none. Instead Cheng Shih lets fly a string of Cantonese invective, pointing an accusing finger at Chi-chi, who stands there trembling, very wet and very abashed and sheepish.
Hey, it wasn't his fault, I'm thinking, getting ready to climb into the bell. Leave the poor guy alone, for heaven's sake. Course I don't say that to Cheng Shih, who seems right steamed.
She ends with "Meng chi jyut! Suen ta!"
Chi-chi bows to her and then comes to stand next to me.
"What's going on?" I ask of Brother Arcangelo. "What did she say to him?"
"She called him a stupid, ignorant, clumsy worm," he replies. "And she directed him to go to you."
"To me? Why?"
"Because, my dear but inept student of the world's philosophies," sighs the indulgent churchman, "the Chinese have a belief that if you save a person's life, you have interrupted his karma, his destiny, and are therefore responsible for him the rest of his life."
What?
"It is true, Miss. He is now your slave. Cheng Shih has given him to you."
"But I won't have it," I say, aghast. "I am against slavery in any form."
"If you refuse, they will merely throw him back in the water to complete his karmic journey to the bottom of the sea."
I throw up my hands in exasperation. I will never understand anything. "Let's get to diving. That's something I know about. Karma, indeed!"
I go over to the bell. Higgins, with towels at the ready, stands nearby with Ravi, regarding poor Chi-chi standing woefully next to me, then casts his eyes upward toward Josephine perched in the foretop and murmurs, "My, my, Miss, how your tribe doth increase."
I cut the ever-so-droll Mr. Higgins an evil glance and readjust my goggles.
My diving bell is hoisted off the deck and I go to get under it, but Cheng Shih grabs my hand and looks in my eyes. She seems anxious and looks dubiously at the bell with its many signal lines trailing out beneath its bottom edge.
"I'd rather have you, Golden Child, than any ten Golden Buddhas," she says. "Do not do this, dear one."
Brother Arcangelo barely finishes translating this when I squeeze her hand. "Don't worry, Beloved Shih. I will be all right. We have a bargain and I must do my part."
I plant a kiss on her cheek and give her a rakish wink.
She lets go my hand and I get under the bell and onto the seat.
Let's go.
Hello, Bell, it's been a while since we've explored together, hasn't it? Good to see you're still in fighting trim, strong of iron wall and thick of glass window, protecting my frail self down here in the awful depths, eh?
The bottom of the diving bell is, like any ordinary church or tower bell, completely open, and I can look down through that opening, past my dangling feet, as if through a clear lens. Professor Tilden, the supposed man of science who first convinced me to go down in this rig, maintained that it was the atmospheric pressure that kept the water out of the bell. Well, it keeps it out to a degree, but the deeper you go, the more the water creeps up the inside, the air inside being compressed, you see. Me, too, it seems—compressed, I mean—as I found out that time when I swam up to the surface outside of the bell after being so compressed, resulting in great, stupid, glorious rapture, and then great pain as the gases compressed in my body elected to bubble out through my joints. The bends, it is called, and Dr. Sebastian, my good friend and scholarly associate, said I was lucky to have survived. Believe me. I am much more careful now.
The surface of the water below my dangling feet, which started out a scant few inches above the bottom edge of the bell, is now about eighteen inches below my toes.
As the bell sinks, with me tucked inside, I think on things...
After I bring up the Buddha, the terms of the bargain will have been met, and the Lorelei and the Cerberus will sail off—with all my friends, and yes, with Jaimy, too, and I will be left behind on the Divine Wind with Cheng Shih...
I look out and all is just green beyond my window. It is bright but grows darker as we go ever downward.
Thinking of Jaimy gone brings a tear to my goggled eye. But hey, maybe I've already caused enough trouble for the poor lad and maybe he'd be better off with someone else—someone who isn't in trouble all the time, someone who would be content to stay in that rose-covered cottage while he is off at sea, a loving soul to raise his children and wait longingly for his return from the merciless ocean. Someone ... but, sadly, not me. Yes, I'm sure that would be best.
I squeeze my nostrils together and blow to clear my ears of the increasing pressure. Swallowing helps, too. I work up a gob of spit, swallow it down, and am rewarded with a click in each ear ... Good ... Hmmm ... Still just green out there in the South China Sea...
But I cannot feel too sorry for myself ... for did I not sign on for a life of adventure when I first set foot on the Dolphin back there on that dock in London? I did, so maybe being the treasured possession of a female Chinese pirate is part of that adventure ... And after all, as companion to Cheng Shih, I shall see wondrous sights—China itself, and maybe the Great Wall, and Japan and Korea, and don't forget my Cathay Cat, no, don't forget him, nor the Kangaroo, nor any of those figments of my overactive imagination, and there will be other, even more magical things...
I lean back and wait as I go ever deeper.
...But not to see Amy again, nor Randall, nor any of my friends at the Lawson Peabody School, ah, that will be hard, indeed. But, hey ... wait a minute, Amy—that day when Randall came back to us, all resplendent in his new U.S. Marine uniform.—did not that goose walk over my future grave, making me shudder? Yes, it did, and is that not proof that I will someday return to Dovecote, if only to be put in the ground? Or is it just a silly superstition? I don't know, I—
Wait! The bottom is coming up!
A waving field of sea grass suddenly appears below me, I reach for the STOP signal cord and give it a hard yank. The bell stops its descent about twenty feet above the bottom and hangs there slowly swinging about.
Well. Time to have a look about, eh?
I adjust my goggles to fit tighter about my eye sockets, check the straps on my foot fins, take three deep breaths, holding the last one, and then slip out under the lower edge of the bell.
The bed of sea grass extends in
all directions, with a patch of bare sand here and there. Small fishes dart about ... some bigger ones, too, but none so large or so fierce as to cause me worry. I give a kick and float out over the slowly undulating seaweed.
Nothing to be seen, yet. Everything is relatively flat, unlike that place off Key West, with its chasms and drop-offs, where at last I located the Spanish treasure galleon Santa Magdalena, the source of all my riches and all my current trouble. It wasn't the Magdalena's fault, though. It was due to my inherent and all-consuming greed... But never mind, girl, that's done with—keep your mind on your present work.
The expanse of grass seems endless, and I fear that we shall go through a long process of exploring the bottom, bit by bit, by moving the position of the Lorelei Lee a small degree each day. But wait, over there's the line of one of the marker buoys that were dropped on the day the Buddha first took his salty dip. Must check, but first...
Back to the bell for some quick breaths, and then back out again to follow that buoy line to see where it might lead. Putting my hand upon it, I see that the other end of the line disappears into an especially dense thicket of grass. Testing it, I feel that it is still securely held by whatever weight was attached to it. That weight turns out to be heavy enough to support me as I go, hand over hand, down the length of the line.
I feel a sudden surge of underwater current, and the grass parts beneath me and...
There you are, you sweet thing.
The Buddha smiles beatifically up into the light, glowing all golden and beautiful. And, oddly, it does seem that enlightenment of some sort streams from his calm and benign countenance. He appears to be just as happy down here in the depths as up there in the air. I feel the same way, too, sometimes. There is a serenity down here beneath the sea, all clear and bright, that I often do not find up there, and I like—
Oh, never mind what you like, girl, just get on with it.
I give him a pat on his shiny bald head, and then kick back to the bell. Once in it, I pull the UP rope, and I feel the bell slowly rise. I will need about two hundred and fifty feet of half-inch line. That'll be strong enough to get him to the surface, where stronger ropes can be attached to haul him aboard. No longer is it a problem of finding—now it is a problem of simple salvage.
As I sit on the bell's bench, waiting to again join those in the upper world, a grin spreads over my face, and I'm thinkin', wouldn't it be a great joke on Cheng Shih, when the bell is pulled onboard the Lee, for me to flop out of the bottom of the bell, limbs all ahoo, water streaming from my mouth, seemingly dead and drowned?
No, it would not, says my bottom, damp but comfortable on the bell's bench, remembering the cruel switching it got the last time I angered Cheng Shih. No, it is not wise to tease the Dragon Lady.
And so I don't do it. Instead, when the bell is swung back over the Lorelei Lee's deck, I spring out, yank off goggles, toe out of swim fins, and submit to being wrapped in a large, soft towel by Higgins. A hot cup of tea is put in my fist by Ravi, and I receive a very warm look from Cheng Shih, who I know despaired of ever seeing me alive again.
I issue orders for the proper line, and invite Cheng Shih down into my cabin for a bit of lunch ... a private lunch, just the two of us.
After said luncheon, I squirm back into my swimming suit and head out to complete the job.
The coil of rope has been prepared and I slip back under the bell and sit myself down. The bell and I are lifted, and down we go again.
The descent this time seems quicker, and I am soon hovering above the lovely Buddha. I look about for the proper place to loop the rope about his holy form, but can find none. His neck is too fat and thick to put a noose about it. It would slip right off and would not be very respectful of a major religious figure. No, it will have to be something else ... Ha! His left foot extends out from under his loincloth, and that will have to be it. I wrap the bitter end of the line around the chubby foot, slap on a few half hitches, and jerk the line twice.
The rope goes taut, and the Buddha begins his return to the temporal world—upside down, to be sure, but still beaming his light upon all about him.
I nip back into the bell and watch him ascend into the light.
The job is done, the bargain made.
Chapter 68
The Golden Buddha now sits placidly on the deck of the Divine Wind. I stand on the deck of the Lorelei Lee with Cheng Shih standing beside me, both of us dressed in rich silken jackets with golden dragons on our backs. James Fletcher stands in front of me and we are holding hands and saying goodbye. Small boats are moored alongside with crews ready to take Jaimy back to the Cerberus and me and Cheng Shih and Brother Arcangelo back to the Divine Wind. All our crews stand in the riggings, watching. Above us, at the masthead of the Lee, a dragon pennant flies, all splendid in green, red, and gold. A similar one snaps at the main mast of the Cerberus. Cheng Shih has given those to us to guarantee safe passage for our ships through the waters controlled by her mighty fleet.
I, of course, am crying.
"Goodbye, Jaimy," I say, looking into his eyes for probably the last time. "Perhaps it's better this way. Maybe it was never meant to be..."
His face is dark with anger and frustration.
"Jacky," he says, his voice thick with stifled rage. "Surely we must be able to—"
"Look out there, Jaimy. There must be fifty of her ships lying not two hundred yards off. We wouldn't stand a chance. Think of your ship, your men," I say, sniffling.
"My men will fight for you, as will I."
"I know that, Jaimy, but it is no use. There are the women, the children, to consider. She is letting everybody go, everyone 'cept me, and I think that's a fair trade. And ... and think of the fine adventures I shall have, the places I will see, so do not pine for me." I gasp for breath. "I love you, Jaimy, and I know you love me, too, but I want you to go on with your life ... I do..."
I turn to Cheng Shih, tears streaming down my face.
"Please, Beloved Shih, may I kiss him goodbye?"
Her dark eyes look into mine and she shakes her head.
"Fau!" she says, and turns from me.
What? She says no to such a simple thing? How can she deny me that little thing when she says that she loves me?
But she is not doing that at all. I look at her face and see that a tear glistens in her own eye. Visibly trying to control herself, she looks at me and says something to Brother Arcangelo.
"Cheng Shih wishes to say," says the priest, "that you may go with your young man. She does not wish to cause her Golden Child, the one who has brought her much joy, such great unhappiness."
Stunned, I drop to my knees before her. "Bless you, Beloved Shih! You shall forever rest in the heart of this unworthy one!"
She puts her hand on my head.
"Joi gin, ju kau-jing yi," she says softly.
Brother Arcangelo does not have to translate—I know what she has said.
She then turns and walks away in a rustle of silk and a whiff of jasmine perfume. Cheng Shih, Admiral of the China Sea, goes down into a waiting boat, and is gone.
Brother Arcangelo follows, but before he goes over the side, he smiles and says to me, "Buon giorno, Signorina Faber. It has been both a pleasure ... and an education." He nods, blesses me, and then I see my unlikely friend, the Italian Catholic priest, Arcangelo Rossetti, Society of Jesus, no more.
Amazed, I stand on my deck for a moment and then fling myself on Jaimy, giving him the kiss of his life. Then I pull back and exclaim, "Jaimy! Get back to your ship! She is letting me go! Let's get the hell out of here before she changes her mind!"
Jaimy stands on his quarterdeck on the Cerberus and I stand on mine on the Lorelei Lee. Both ships have all sails up and drawing, and we are close enough so we can hear each other call.
"To Australia, Jaimy!" I shout, waving my hand above my head.
"To Australia, Jacky!" shouts Jaimy. "I will join you in Botany Bay! And, by God, you shall then be mine, in all ways!"
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"Yes, Jaimy, oh yes!" I reply. "And you shall have me in all ways..." I chuckle to myself. "If you can catch me," I cry. "For I shall beat you and your gang of Irish scum down to Botany Bay, or me name ain't Jacky Faber! Then we shall see about who has whom!"
Cheers from the lads on both decks.
I plant my feet on my quarterdeck and shout, "Sail on, lads, and let the Lorelei Lee show them her tail!"
I shout down to my crew, and then I sing out...
"Shantyman, sing us away!"
Enoch Lightner advances to his drum and commences to beat a slow march upon it, and, as the Lorelei Lee heels over into the wind, he sings out...
So heave away, my bully, bully boys!
Haul away, haul away!
Heave her up and don't you make a noise.
We're bound for South Austral-lia!
PART V
Chapter 69
"At the risk of sounding portentous," remarks Higgins, who stands at my side as we watch the Crews prepare to debark. "Could we be witnessing the birth of a nation?"
The Lizzies, the Tartans, and the Judies, with the Madams Barnsley, MacDonald, and Berry at the lead of each of their Crews, wait for word to head down the gangplank in a state of high hilarity, and, yes, I believe, into history. The men on the land below can only gape up at them in complete astonishment.
"I believe we are, John Higgins," I say. "Hey, you put boys and girls together and how can you miss? It's all biology, my good sir ... biology and a bit of time..."
Higgins gives a hint of a dry laugh at that. He stands on the deck of the Lorelei Lee dressed as her Captain. He could not impersonate our late Captain Augustus Laughton—no, Old Gussie was too well known about the various fleets for that to be pulled off successfully, and our good Captain had to be listed among those who had died on the way here, along with several of the older ladies of the Crews, a sailor who had been swept away in a storm, and a certain convict named Mary Faber, who had died of Unknown Causes. No, instead, Higgins poses as Acting Captain Ruger, and we all hope to get away with the sham. We stand and wait, with bated breath, to see if Jaimy can pull off his part of the deception. I myself stand on my quarterdeck, dressed in my Creole ship's boy costume—ragged trousers, short curly black wig, straw hat, and pipe clenched in teeth—as Ship's Boy Jacques Bouvier, Messenger of the Watch. I certainly could not impersonate any Captain, living or dead.
The Wake of the Lorelei Lee: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, On Her Way to Botany Bay Page 38
