In a few minutes the Flying Fish had dropped to within the proposed distance of the earth; and, on clearing the windows of the accumulated frost, it was discovered that the moon (then in her third quarter) had risen and was suffusing the earth with her feeble ghostly light, which, slight as it was, enabled the voyagers to perceive that they were skimming through the air at a tremendous speed. The engines, though working at their full power, were perfectly noiseless; and the propeller, though revolving at a rate of fully one thousand revolutions per minute, caused not the slightest perceptible vibration in the hull of the ship. A loud humming sound, however, proceeded from it, audible even above the rush of the air against the sides of the pilot-house.
Leith Hill was soon passed, the waters of the Channel—distinguished in the faint light only by a thin tremulous line of glimmering silver under the crescent moon—were sighted, and, almost before they had time to realise the fact, they had skimmed over the anchorage at Spithead, across the Isle of Wight, and were floating above the waters of the Channel. By this time the eastern sky had begun to pale perceptibly before the coming dawn; the lights of Saint Catherine behind them and the Casquets ahead gleamed with steadily diminishing power in the gathering daylight; the half-dozen or so of ships and steamers in sight, one after the other extinguished their signal lamps; and, just as they reached their destination and settled lightly as a snow-flake upon the glassy surface of the water, up rose the glorious sun, flashing his brilliant beams over land and sea, and awakening all nature into light and life once more.
As the Flying Fish alighted on the surface of the water, the professor pulled out his watch and remarked, with evident satisfaction:
“One hundred and fifty miles in just one hour and a quarter! That is good travelling, and proves the speed of our ship to be exactly what I estimated it would be. We will now set the force-pump to work; and I hope, that by the time we are ready to descend, that brilliant sun will have enshrouded our movements in a concealing mist. We are surrounded by fishing-boats, as you see, and I have no doubt that we have also been observed by the light-keepers on the Casquets. It will never do to disappear before so many curious eyes; they would be filled with horror at the supposed catastrophe. In the meantime we may as well go out on deck to enjoy the fresh morning air. As for me, I propose to indulge in the luxury of a swim.”
The main engines had, in the meantime, been stopped, and the force-pump put slowly in motion, so that the submersion of the hull might be sufficiently gradual to escape notice.
Five minutes later the professor and his three companions were gambolling round the ship like so many porpoises—or dolphins, if they would prefer the latter metaphor—enjoying to the full the invigorating luxury of their bath in the cool, pure sea-water.
By the time that they were on board again and dressed, the intelligent George had arranged for them on deck a nice little light breakfast of chocolate, biscuits, and fruit, for which their swim had given them an unbounded relish. The meal was partaken of at leisure, and followed by a cigar, over which they dawdled so long that the Flying Fish was submerged to the deck before the last stump had been reluctantly thrown away. The mist which the professor had prognosticated having, meanwhile, gathered sufficiently to cloak their movements, a cast of the lead was taken and the ship was found to be in ninety fathoms of water. The professor, for reasons of his own, deemed this sufficiently near the deepest point to justify an immediate descent. They accordingly entered the pilot-house forthwith, closing the door securely after them—the air-pump was stopped, the sea-cock communicating with the water-chambers was opened, and the Flying Fish, with an easy imperceptible motion, sank gently beneath the placid waters, to rest, a minute or two later, on a bed of gravel at the bottom of the Channel.
“Now,” said the professor, looking at his watch when the ship had fairly settled into her strange berth, and had been securely anchored there, “it is just eight o’clock. We are all somewhat fatigued, and our bath and breakfast have prepared us nicely to enjoy a few hours’ repose. I therefore propose, gentlemen, that we retire to our sleeping apartments until two o’clock p.m. George shall call us at that hour and have a bit of luncheon ready for us, after which we shall have ample time to test our diving apparatus before dinner.”
This proposal met with a very cordial reception, and was duly carried out, with the result that, half an hour later, the four adventurous voyagers were sleeping as calmly in their novel resting-place as though they had been accustomed from their earliest infancy to take their repose at the bottom of the sea.