me serious--when I began to lift and drive up towards the daylight.
Just about the level of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack!
I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
of my helmet. Then something else, struggling frightful. It was
a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving and twisting
about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, if it
hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was
all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking down again, and
I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot rolled
free of me and shot down as I went up--"

He paused.

"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear
driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what
looked like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went
clutching one another, and turning over, and both too far gone
to leave go. And in another second my helmet came a whack, fit
to split, against the niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full.

"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three
spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps
kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw
the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist,
and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state
of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young
Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit,
and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck
of the Ocean Pioneer.