A long, long time later the inflated canvas bag came up and was floating on top of the waves. The Pelorus whistled. Nick went below. A few minutes later he came up again to report.
"The Pelorus says not to cast our dredge adrift. They're sending the bathyscaphe down unmanned, to test all apparatus before a manned dive. They don't want any debris in the sea."
"Tell them we send them a kiss," snapped Davis, "and they needn't worry!"
The Esperance approached the floating bag. Jug swung out on the lifting boom and hooked it. The winch hauled it out of the water. The concrete weights were gone. What the nets had captured was not pretty to see. A dead fish with foliated appendages had come up from far below, to judge by what its unpunctured swim bladder had done to it in uncontrolled expansion. Davis said curtly it was Linophrine arborifer, belonging two thousand fathoms below. An angry-looking creature, similarly dead, was Opisthoproctus grimaldi. It belonged deeper than the other. There were other specimens. A genostoma of a species the books didn't picture; a Myctophum; and various other creatures, mostly as grotesque as their scientific names. All were abyssal fish. They had died while rising from a pressure of several tons per square inch to surface-pressure only.
"It worked," said Davis curtly. "I almost wish it hadn't. Let it down into the water again. We'll jettison it when the Pelorus gives us permission."
Time passed. More time. Still more. The bathyscaphe was now in the water, practically awash. Only a small conning tower showed above the waves. Men swarmed around it.
There came a query from the Pelorus. The Esperance gave assurance that the deep-sea dredge had returned to the surface and would be kept there.
The bathyscaphe was allowed to sink.
The recorder on the yacht began to pick up deep-toned mooing sounds from the depths.
Presently, the mooing sounds ceased.