The Diver's Remorse

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Tim Condon is a deep sea diver and one of the best of his profession. With his partner, Rob Blake, who shares the perils of the descents, he has performed some remarkable feats, but just now business is slack and he and Blake are getting up the last of the wreckage of a schooner which foundered close to shore. Blake, all unknown to Jim, has fallen madly in love with pretty Myra Condon, and so rash does his evil passion make him that he follows her off the dock when she comes to the wrecking tag with her husband and urges his suit without having received the slightest encouragement. He is overseen by Jim, who gives him not as much of a thrashing as he deserves; but Condon is too big-hearted a man to realize the other's smallness, and when the apparently repentant Blake comes to his cottage that evening he makes him welcome, and, all unsuspicious, goes after the pail of water Myra asks for, leaving the two alone. Again Blake renews his suit, and this time Jim gives him more nearly the thrashing that is his due. Blake broods over the incident, and the next day he steals up behind Jim while they are at the bottom and cuts the latter's air hose and life line. Deprived of air and unable to rise because of his leaden shoes and weighted belt, Jim sinks to the bottom of the sea, and Blake signals to be taken quickly to the surface. A submarine, placing harbor mines in practice work, comes upon the scene, and the diver, who leaves the submarine to plant the mine, comes upon the unconscious form before it is too late. Meanwhile there is consternation aboard the wrecker and another diver volunteers to make the descent and look for the missing man, whose air hose and life line have been drawn to the surface. When his mission proves a failure, Blake is relieved, since the cut hose will not show, nor do dead men tell tales. But that evening he spends his time by the sea and the apparition of his dead chum constantly appears before him. He rushes off to the Condon cottage, where he relieves his tortured mind by making a clean breast of his offense, and the confession is overheard by his intended victim. This time Condon seeks to kill the man whose evil love has threatened first his happiness and then his life, but Myra intercedes and Blake is permitted to slink away. This is an unusually realistic subject, for the production of which a corps of deep sea divers was employed. With the exception of the scenes at the bottom of the sea, the pictures are all natural poses made from a wrecking tug, with a submarine boat showing above the surface in some of the views. The submarine views are made with a care that perfectly reproduces the under-water conditions as described by the actual divers who take part in the real water scenes.