“All right below, sir!” hailed up Ned, when everything had been attended to.
“S-w-i-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-h!”
A hissing sound filled the boat as the lieutenant, with a turn of his wrist, set in motion the machinery which filled the submerged tanks. Beneath their feet they could feel the little vessel begin to settle as the weight grew heavier.
“Wow!” exclaimed Herc, “suppose she doesn’t come up again?”
“Jee-rus-a-hos-o-phat!” cried old Tom, “this goin’ down in a new-fangled craft like this gives me the creeps alright.”
Ned said nothing, but his heart beat with unpleasantly strenuous leaps. Slowly, deliberately, like a wounded water-thing, the submarine settled. Now the waves were awash of her tower, and presently the water was rising about the thick lenses.
A perceptible chill was manifest in the air, and always sounded in their ears that ominous, swishing, rushing sound. At last, to Ned’s intense relief, the tanks were filled. A glance at the submarine gauge, on the wall of the cabin, showed that they were already twenty feet down.
“Hang on, everybody,” came a hail from the conning-tower, “we’re going to dive!”
“Good land!” gasped Herc, “it’s all off now. Wish I was back on the farm.”
Standing wedged beside the officers in the narrow conning-tower, Channing Lockyer breathed a silent prayer. The fruition or the blasting of his hopes was at hand. The moment was more fraught with stress than any he had ever known.