Think of the devil, however: when we broke the surface of the water, and began to splash our way back towards Walcott's lugger, what should appear around the bow of the lugger but the Diogenes, with Edward and Forrest and Jimmy standing on the foredeck, and Dan Bass at the wheel.
Quamus glanced at me, and I made a rotating action with my hand to indicate that he should continue to pay out the fuse. We reached the lugger and heaved ourselves up the side. Laurie and Walcott helped us on to the foredeck, and for a moment we lay there like two landed sealions, gasping for breath; but it was obvious that Edward wasn't going to give us any rest. He beckoned Dan to guide the Diogenes right in close to Walcott's lugger, and cupped his hands around his mouth.
'Mr Walcott!' he shouted. 'John! What's going on here? What are you up to?'
'Just showing Quamus the David Dark, that's all,' I shouted back.
'In a salvage boat? And what's all that waterjet and airlift gear doing on deck?'
'Mind your own business,' I told him. 'This wreck doesn't belong to anybody. It's unregistered. If we want to do a little excavation of our own, that's up to us.'
'The David Dark is registered now,' Edward shouted. 'I just registered her this morning. Gilly called me up from Tewksbury and said that you'd gone off early with a whole lot of equipment.'
Thanks, Gilly, I thought to myself. Judas in linen and lace.
'Well, registered or not, we still have a perfect right to be here,' I told Edward.
'You want me to prove you wrong?' demanded Edward. 'You want me to call the coastguard and have you moved away? This wreck is private property now, and part-owned by the city of Salem. Any vessel suspected of carrying out diving or unauthorized salvage anywhere in the vicinity is liable to be impounded, and the owners fined. So move out.'
'Edward,' I said, 'I thought you and I were friends.'
'Apparently we made a mistake,' said Edward. And without saying anything else, he turned away, and directed Dan Bass to turn the Diogenes about.
'Quamus,' I said, without moving. 'Light the fuse. Mr Walcott, start your engines and get us the hell out of here.'
Quamus said, 'You will not warn your colleagues?'
'My ex-colleagues, you mean? Sure I'll warn them. But get that fuse lit first.'
Quamus struck a match, cupped his hands over the end of the fuse, and held the flame against the fabric until the explosive core of the fuse ignited. It was a fast-burning fuse, 120 cm a minute, and it quickly sparkled over the side of the lugger and disappeared under the surface of the sea. There was a light cloud of smoke, and a rush of bubbles, and then it was gone.
Walcott gunned the lugger's engines, and it was then that I yelled out to Edward: 'Get going! Move! Fast as you can! Explosives!'
I saw Edward, Forrest and Jimmy stare across at me, startled. They looked at each other in amazement, and then they looked back at me.
Edward shouted: 'What did you say? Explosives?'
'Going off now!' I screamed at him, as the lugger heeled off towards the Granitehead shore. 'Get out of there quick!'
There was a moment's silence; then the Diogenes' engine blared into life, and the little boat began to move away, slowly at first, but quickly building up speed. It had only travelled about 50 yards, however, when there was a curious shaking in the ocean, a sensation quite unlike anything that I had ever felt before. It was like an earthquake, only more vertiginous, as if the world were falling into separate pieces, as if sky were becoming detached from ocean, and ocean were becoming detached from land. I felt as if we were all going to fly weightless into the air, boats, compressors, flags, diving-suits, and everything.
Then, the surface of the sea burst apart. With a thunderous roar, an immense cliff of solid water rose into the air, 50 or 100 feet, and hung there in the morning air. A shock-wave pressed against my ears, suppressing the clatter of tons of brine as it collapsed back into the sea, but my ears cleared again in time to hear the echo coming back from the Granitehead Hills, as clear as a cannon-shot.
The deck of the lugger angled and bucked beneath our feet, and we had to cling to the rails to steady ourselves. But the Diogenes, which was much nearer the centre of the blast, was swamped first by falling water, and then by a miniature tidal-wave, which broke over her stern and must have gushed into her open hatches unchecked.
Edward didn't seek our help. He must have been too shocked and angry. Instead, I could see him helping the others to bail out, while Dan Bass gently nursed the hiccupping engine, and steered the Diogenes back towards Salem Harbour. There weren't even any shouts of recrimination, or threats of calling the coastguard; but I knew that Edward would immediately report our piratical behaviour both to the coastguard and to the Salem police, and that we would be lucky to get back to shore without being arrested.
'What do we do now?' asked Walcott. 'The minute that busybody gets back into harbour, the cops are going to be swarming around us like bluefish.'
'We must salvage the copper vessel,' Quamus insisted.
'Disregard the police. The copper vessel is more important.'
'As long as your precious Mr Evelith guarantees to bail me out of jail,' snapped Walcott.
'Mr Evelith will guarantee your complete immunity from prosecution,' said Quamus, and the way he looked at Walcott, there wasn't any way that Walcott was going to argue. Walcott was tough, but Quamus was imperious, his expression as stony as the side of a building.
Walcott and his daughter began to unpack the salvage floats which were stowed around the sides of the after-deck. There were twenty of these, and the idea was to attach them to the copper vessel, once we had located it, and then inflate them with compressed air, so that the copper vessel would rise to the surface and could then be towed into harbour like a raft.
By now, the ocean all around us was bubbling and boiling with rising silt and surfacing debris. There were scores of dead fish, floating white-belly upwards, flounder and dabs, mostly, and a few bluefish. There were blackened elm timbers, carlings and deck supports and broken staves, presumably from the ship's supply-barrels, and fragments of masts and rigging-blocks.
'You're not going to dive into the middle of that,' said Walcott, looking down into the disturbed surface of the sea. 'Give it a half-hour to clear up, first. Otherwise you'll never find each other, let alone a copper trunk.'
'Half an hour may be too long,' said Quamus, narrowing his eyes towards the shore. 'The coastguard could be here by then.'
'Look,' said Walcott, 'I don't mind taking risks. I don't even mind a run-in with the coastguard. I'm used to it. But I'm not taking any responsibility for you and your pal diving into an ocean that's thick with dangerous debris. Just forget it.'
'We can take our own responsibility,' said Quamus.
'Maybe you can,' Walcott retorted, 'but you can't dive without oxygen, and you're not diving with any of mine.'
Quamus stared at Walcott with such intense disapproval that Walcott had to chew on his pipe, and look away. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'But if you dive into that little lot, anything could happen.'
We watched for another five minutes as more and more pieces of broken wood rose to the surface. Soon the whole area around Walcott's lugger was littered with thousands of pieces of dark timber, the remains of one of the most historic archaeological finds in recent history. It looked as if the dynamite had completely shattered the fragile wreck of the David Dark into flinders. To piece it all together again out of this floating collection of firewood would be impossible. But I didn't feel guilty. I knew that I had done what was necessary; and that sometimes human life has to come before human culture.