“No, boys, you’re not going down here,” declared Rawlins. “Too deep.”
“Oh, confound it all!” cried Frank. “Everything has to be spoiled. What’s the use if we can’t go down to the old wreck?”
“You can look through the underseas ports and watch me,” Rawlins reminded them. “Honest, I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but this is real diving. I’ll have to use my regulation suit here too. Too deep for those self-contained ones.”
For a time the disappointed boys sulked, but presently, realizing that there were limits to what they could expect to do and also realizing that they were more than fortunate to be able to watch Rawlins as he investigated the old galleon, their high spirits returned and they became as interested, excited and enthusiastic as ever.
The submarine was now close to the spot where Rawlins stated the wreck had been before and he busied himself getting out his suit, oiling and testing the air pump and making everything ready while the submarine slowed down and came to a stop.
“It’s a heap easier now—with a submarine,” said Rawlins, as he slid back the heavy metal cover to the thick glass port. “We can look about a bit and locate the wreck before I go down. Last time it took us nearly a month to find it. You see, it’s too deep to see bottom from the surface and—look here, boys—ever see anything prettier than that?”
The boys crowded to the small port and stared out It was like the sea-gardens at Nassau multiplied and glorified a thousandfold. The submarine was now submerged and floating at a slight angle a few fathoms above the bottom and her powerful electric lights, such as Rawlins used in his sub-sea photography, were casting a brilliant beam of soft greenish light upon the ocean floor and the marvelous growths which covered it. The boys, dry and safe within the submarine, could scarcely believe they actually were gazing at the bottom of the sea. It was more like some strange and marvelous painting or, as Tom said, like the models on exhibition in the American Museum. It was all unreal, weird, beautiful, unbelievable. On all sides was a dim, green void, with half-revealed forms, shadowy outlines and indistinct objects showing through it as through a heavy green curtain, while the beam of light, stabbing through the water gave the effect of the curtain being drawn aside to disclose the beauties and wonders behind it. Back and forth in this light clear space flitted gaudy fishes; fishes of grotesque form; fishes with long, trailing opalescent-hued fins; fishes large and fishes small; and once the boys cried out in momentary alarm and drew quickly back from the glass as an ugly hammer-headed shark, six feet or more in length, bumped his clumsy-looking head against the port.
“Gosh! Mr. Rawlins, aren’t you afraid to go down among those fellows?” cried Tom.
“Not in the least,” Rawlins assured him. “They won’t touch a man in a diving suit—come up and rub their backs against him or stare at him, but never anything else. They’re a blamed nuisance at times—get in a man’s way, but we can drive ’em off by hitting them. Look, there’s a moray!”
As he spoke, an immense greenish, snake-like eel wriggled past so closely the boys could see his throbbing gills.