"They've got sense enough not to show any light," he mused, "so the thieves won't know what is going on unless they see the shadow overhead, or run into one of the fellows."
Leaving Frank, as the most cautious of the boys, to guard the lines and air-hose when they touched sharp angles, Ned, accompanied by Jack, advanced down the main companionway and was soon in the large and handsomely furnished cabin.
Then the electric searchlights were put to use, and the great apartment lay partly exposed to view. Their entrance into the room seemed to create something like a current in the water, and articles of light weight came driving at them.
Ned turned sick and faint as a dead body lifted from the floor and a ghastly face was turned toward his own. A few unfortunate ones had gone down with the ship, and most of the bodies lay in this cabin.
Those who had remained on deck until the final plunge had, of course, drifted away. However, the boy soon recovered his equilibrium, and went about his work courageously, notwithstanding the fact that many terrifying forms of marine life swam and squirmed around him.
Clinging to heavy tables and chairs to prevent slipping, the boys made their way to that part of the ship where, according to their drawings, the captain's cabin had been. Their first duty was to make search for any sealed papers which might be there.
The room was located at last, and then Ned motioned to Jack to extinguish his light. The boy obeyed orders with a feeling of dread.
It was dark as the bottomless pit in the cabin now, and fishes and squirming things brushed against his legs and rubbed against the line which was supplying him with air.
In all the experiences of the Boy Scouts nothing like this had ever been encountered before. In Mexico, in the Philippines, in the Great Northwest, in the Canal Zone, in the cold air far above the roof of the world, they had usually been in touch with all the great facts of Nature, but now they seemed separated from all mankind—buried in a fathomless pit filled with unclean things.
The door of the captain's cabin was closed. Ned put his ear against it, then reached out and took Jack by the arm. The latter understood the order and crowded close.