“Ah, lad! danger and misadventure make one wondrous wise.”
. . . . . .
For the first time since their imprisonment the great diving lift was swung overboard, and Barclay, who, it must be owned, was chief favourite with Antonio, descended in it to the sea’s dark depths.
These dark depths, however, were speedily illuminated by electric light.
Not only so, but a flash-light was turned on, and directed through the great glass window away into the blackness of darkness beyond. The effect was magical.
Not only could they see the sandy bottom clearly, and make out that it was covered white with the débris of shells that had sunk from aloft, but the strange light attracted towards it small fishes in shoals, of every conceivable kind or class.
Not only these, but huge sharks and zygænas, or hammer-headed sharks. They came close against the glass, and might have smashed it had not Antonio been prepared to repel these ungainly and terrible would-be boarders. He had placed sharp strong wires near the sides, and when a shark came too near he touched a button, and though the shock was not enough to kill, it was sufficient to make the monsters fly.
They stopped down for a whole hour on the first day to study natural history.
But on the second day they saw a strange sight under the rays of the great flash-light; several enormous sharks were about, and one received a shock.
Unable to imagine what had hurt him, instead of darting away off into the darkness, he turned with all the fury of a tiger on another shark near him.