Chapter Six.
In Search of a Submerged Wreck.
To return to the Flying Fish. It was exactly two o’clock p.m. when Lieutenant Mildmay announced that, according to his “dead reckoning,” they were now on or very near the spot indicated on the chart by the professor, and that, if there was no objection, he should like to rise to the surface in order to obtain the astronomical observations necessary to verify the ship’s position. The engines were accordingly stopped, and the water being ejected from the water chambers, the travellers once more found themselves above water, advantage being taken of the opportunity to throw open the door of the pilot-house and step out on deck.
The first discovery made by them was that a moderate breeze was blowing from the westward, with a corresponding amount of sea and a very long heavy swell, which, however, to their great gratification, affected the Flying Fish only to a very trifling extent. When end-on to the sea she pitched a little, it is true, but when broadside-on she simply rose and fell with the run of the sea, being as completely free from rolling motion as though she had still been on the stocks.
Their next discovery was that a large steamer was in sight, some seven miles distant; and, whilst they stood watching the way in which the craft plunged along over the heavy swell, pitching “bows under” occasionally, she suddenly altered her course and steered direct toward them, her crew having apparently only that moment sighted the Flying Fish, and being evidently in great perplexity as to what she could possibly be.
“Be as quick as you can with your observations, Mildmay, and let us get under water again,” said the baronet. “We shall perhaps be expected to explain who and what we are if that steamer gets within hail of us, and I am not particularly anxious to do that.”
The sights were taken, and, whilst the steamer was yet some five miles distant, the Flying Fish quietly sank once more beneath the waves; doubtless to the intense astonishment of those who were making such haste to get alongside her.
Rapidly, yet steadily, and with a perfectly level deck, the craft sank lower and lower, the light diminishing momentarily, until it at length vanished altogether, and the darkness became so intense that it was impossible for the occupants of the pilot-house to discern each other; whilst the silence which prevailed around them was first oppressive and then awe-inspiring in its intensity.
Suddenly a light shuffling sound arose within the pilot-house, and in another moment the inky depths through which they were descending became brilliantly illuminated with a clear white penetrating light, in which every detail of the ship’s hull fore and aft stood out distinctly visible, whilst here and there, above, below, and on either side of them, a momentary gleam revealed the presence of some startled and hastily retreating denizen of the deep. The professor had lighted up the electric lanterns, the especial purpose of which was to illuminate the sea around the ship, leaving the interior of the pilot-house still in darkness, in order that its occupants might enjoy, to the fullest extent, the novelty of the scene thus suddenly revealed to them, and also that, on reaching the bottom, they might the better be able to distinguish external objects.