"Good, glad to hear it," said Remi. "Sam Fargo, you're a dummy."

"Pardon me?"

"What were you thinking, going after that thing?"

"I just reacted. By the time I realized what the hell I was doing it was too late. In for a penny, in for--"

"A one-way trip to the bottom of the ocean," Remi countered with a scowling shake of her head. "I swear, Fargo . . ."

"Sorry," Sam said. "And thanks for coming to get me."

"Dummy," Remi repeated, then got up, walked over, and kissed him on the cheek. "But you're my dummy. And you don't need to thank me--but you're welcome anyway."

"Tell me we still have it," Sam said, looking around. "Do we still have it?" He was still a tad woozy. Remi pointed off the stern where the anchor line, taut as piano wire, arced down into the water.

"While you were taking your catnap, I dragged it off the slope. It should be resting about five feet from the edge."

"Nicely done."

"Don't get too excited. We still have to raise it."

Sam smiled. "Have no fear, Remi. Physics is our friend."

BEFORE THEY COULD APPLY Sam's idea, however, they had to exercise some brute force. With Sam's newly damaged pinkie wrapped in duct tape, he stood in the stern taking up slack in the anchor line while Remi reversed the Andreyale's engine and followed his hand signals until they were almost directly above the bell. He uncoiled the line from the cleats, took up the remainder of the slack, then looped and locked down again.

Sam called, "All ahead slow. Nice and easy."

"You got it."

Remi eased the throttle forward a quarter inch at a time. Sam, leaning over the stern, his face mask in the water, watched the bell's progress as it bulldozed through the sand. When it was twenty feet from the edge of the precipice, he called: "All stop." Remi throttled down.

Sam settled the mask over his face and dove down to examine their prize. He resurfaced a minute later. "Looks good. Not much barnacle growth, which means it's probably been embedded in that bank for quite a while."

Remi extended her hand and helped Sam aboard. She asked, "Damage?"

"None that I could see. It's thick, Remi--probably closer to eighty pounds."

She whistled softly. "Big boy. Okay, by standard measure that'd make the ship . . . what, a thousand tons displacement?"

"Between that and twelve hundred. Much bigger than the Speaker. The proximity of the Adelise coin and the bell is pure coincidence."

WITH THE BELL no longer in danger of dropping into the channel, they disconnected and steered the Andreyale north a hundred yards, then eased their way through the inlet at the island's ankle and emerged in the stiletto lagoon.