Two hours later, waves broke over an object completely awash on the ocean. The Pelorus steamed cautiously toward it. Boats went down from her sides and surrounded the float.
After a long time the Pelorus got alongside and men quickly fastened the huge buoy to the ship. Then the down-wind sea changed its appearance. A reek of gasoline reached the Esperance.
"Something happened," said Davis dourly. "They're dumping the gasoline—not even pumping it aboard. Let's get out of the stink."
The Esperance beat to windward. The Pelorus began to lift something large and ungainly out of the water. The Esperance went down-wind to take a look at it.
The yacht went past no more than fifty yards away, just as the bathyscaphe left the water and swung clear.
The bathyscaphe's conning-tower was gone. It had been torn away by brute force. The three-inch-thick steel globe.... Half of it was gone. The rest was crushed. The sphere, which had been designed to resist a crushing pressure of ten tons per square inch, had been ripped in half! It had been bitten through. Bitten!
There was no comment by anybody on the Esperance.
Half a mile from the oceanographic ship, Davis said in a peculiarly flat voice, "Cut away the dredge. We won't try to use it again."
Someone slashed the inflated canvas bag. It collapsed. Somebody cut away a rope. The free dredge sank, slowly. It would never come up again.
The Esperance changed course. She headed north by west. There was still no conversation at all. The yacht seemed to tiptoe away from the scene of the bathyscaphe's destruction.