Oscar, wishing to satisfy the anxiety of the operator, hastened to assure him that all was well.
“If that’s all you’ve got to bother you, Jack, just take it for granted it will be the boss picture,” he went on to say. “Of course, a whole lot depends on whether your focus was good, and if the rising and falling motion of the boat didn’t interfere with first-class work.”
“I’m not afraid of that part,” the other asserted, which ended the talk on that particular subject.
“Now the engines have started up again, you notice,” Ballyhoo announced glibly. “The show being over, that act of it anyway, we mean to commence going on again. What comes next, I wonder? Some terrible monster of this under-the-sea land will perhaps try to knock a hole in the side of our craft, thinking it’s a big whale come down to look the ground over. Be ready for anything, Jack. We’re in this business for thrillers, just remember.”
“And I imagine we’ll have all we want of the same before we’re through with it,” Jack told him in return, as he once more took up his station at his post, and made ready to turn on the “hand power” when the right occasion arose.
Now that they were moving back and forth, they discovered new and entrancing objects to admire. Captain Shooks was evidently carrying out his announced programme when he said that his line would be to drop down and “comb every foot of the sea bottom around Coco,” looking for some sign of that long-lost vessel, the fame of whose treasure-trove had come down in some musty document.
The Company believed there might be an element of truth in the story, and until a thorough investigation had been made the first project of the list would not be abandoned.
Some times they were so near the sea bottom that they actually cruised amidst those strange trees such as mortal eye had possibly never before beheld, their greenish trunks bending as the submarine’s nose touched them, just as though they were great canes, and as pliable as reeds.
Other moving objects were encountered from time to time, giant crabs, and singular looking creatures to which the staring boys could give no distinguishing name, because they had never before seen anything similar, nor did they remember having read of such grotesque objects.