"I dunno," he said pulling his beard.
"I don't usually tell that story to strange folk, but you remind me so of her that I guess I will." Condy sat down on the edge of the bunk, and the mate seated himself on the plush settle opposite the door, his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed on a patch of bright sunlight upon the deck outside.
"I began life," he said, "as a deep-sea diver--began pretty young, too.
I first put on the armor when I was twenty, nothing but a lad; but I could take the pressure up to seventy pounds even then.

One of my very first dives was off Trincomalee, on the coast of Ceylon.

A mail packet had gone down in a squall with all on board.

Six of the bodies had come up and had been recovered, but the seventh hadn't.

It was the body of the daughter of the governor of the island, a beautiful young girl of nineteen, whom everybody loved.