“Well!” ejaculated Wade, “here is a pretty how-do-ye-do! What is to be done?”

“I reckon we bettah wait fo’ de fog to lift, sah!” suggested Pomp.

“Bejabers, it may be a good while at that,” averred Barney.

“Oh, I think not,” said Wade. “What shall it be, Frank?”

“We will lay-to for a short while,” said the young inventor. “There can be no harm in that.”

So the Diver continued to rock upon the swelling surface of the sea, while the voyagers at times tried to pierce the fog with their eyes.

Perhaps an hour had passed thus when a curious thing happened. Out of the fog there came plainly to the hearing of all, voices raised in laughter and jest.

They seemed but a few yards away, and startled, the submarine voyagers instinctively looked, with the expectation of seeing a vessel bear down upon them out of the fog.

But none appeared.

One moment the voices appeared to sound in one quarter, and then they would change to another, even sounding directly overhead.