He drifted closer, the light from his torch trembling as he brushed away a thick layer of silt and grime. Beneath the sediment lay a mound of stones that looked like ore that had been mined long ago but carried around by the current. They were rough and partially covered in sand, but beneath the debris, there was a definite, unmistakable shimmer of something gold or amber.
He assumed a previous diver had found a vein or perhaps it was cargo lost to the tide. As he gathered a handful of the smaller stones, a practical problem halted his excitement: they were too small for the wide mesh of his commercial net. If he simply tossed them in, they’d fall through the gaps and be lost to the silt forever.
He looked around desperately for a solution, his light falling back onto the rigid, canvas limbs of the antique diving suit slumped beside the reef.