Lower and lower sank the Flying Fish, and at length, after what seemed to the travellers an almost interminable descent, she reached the bottom.
“Now, gentlemen,” exclaimed the professor, with some slight evidences of excitement in the tones of his voice, “look around you, and see if you can discover anything unusual in our neighbourhood.”
The persons addressed did as they were requested, the professor himself also peering eagerly out of each of the pilot-house windows in turn, but without result; the electric lamps, though they brilliantly illuminated the scene on all sides for fully fifty yards, and rendered objects distinguishable for at least three times that distance, revealed nothing but a plain completely covered with rocks and boulders, some of which were of enormous size, and all thickly overgrown with sea-weed.
“What is it you expected to find down here, professor?” asked the colonel, when it had become perfectly evident that nothing but rocks lay within their range of vision.
“The hull of a ship,” answered the professor. “She foundered on or near the spot indicated by me, and cannot be far off; unless, indeed, we are out in our reckoning. Have you worked out your calculations, Mildmay?”
“Not yet,” answered the lieutenant, “but I soon will do so if you will oblige us with a little light inside here.”
“Ah, true! I had forgotten,” murmured the professor apologetically, and he lighted the lamp which hung suspended above the table in the pilot-house.
The lieutenant sat down and rapidly worked out his observations, with the resulting discovery that they were exactly two miles north-east of the spot they were seeking, having doubtless been swept that much out of their proper position by the tide. The Flying Fish was accordingly raised some fifty feet from the bottom, her engines were once more set in motion, slowly this time, however, and the ship’s head laid in the proper direction, the occupants of the pilot-house stationing themselves at the windows and peering out eagerly ahead on the look-out for the object of their search.
The engines being set to work dead slow and stopped at intervals when the speed became too high, the speed of the Flying Fish was kept down to about twelve knots per hour, at which rate she would occupy ten minutes in traversing the required distance. She had been under weigh exactly nine minutes when Mildmay exclaimed:
“Sail ho! That is to say, there is a large object of some kind dead ahead. Port hard, professor, or we shall be into it.”