"What do you say, boys, to a little more fun before you leave us?" asked "Montey."
"Good enough," replied Jay. To which Dick added a "Fire away."
"All right," resumed the superintendent. "You remember we didn't finish up the job on the old Dominion off Martha's Vineyard. Remember, we got most of the diamonds, but left the gold bullion. Thousands of dollars' worth of precious metal down there yet."
"What we want to do is to go back there and finish up the job while you boys are still with us," "Montey" Brown was saying. "We propose to use the Jules Verne and the Nautilus this time instead of sending you down as divers from the Nemo—that is, if you are willing."
Were they willing? Sure they were, and anxious to be off whenever the salvage ship officials said the word. They said so, too, in emphatic words that left no doubt as to the fact that neither of the Brighton lads had lost his nerve as a result of their experiences of the summer.
"Let's go, men," Jay responded. "We still have a few weeks of our contract time left and nothing would suit us better than to visit the old Dominion again."
That settled it. The boys were informed the Jules Verne would sail the following morning at sunrise and they would be counted on to report in time for the sailing.
The Jules Verne and the Nautilus had been completely repaired again after the breakdown in Long Island Sound on the occasion of the coal barge incident. Taken into drydock and carefully examined, it had developed that the Nautilus was intact, despite the bomb explosion. None of her seams had been strained and she had been fitted out with new equipment that made a repetition of the accident in which the two boys nearly lost their lives next to an impossibility.