It was as if the submarine was heading straight for the summit of a mountain—a mountain of weed and barnacles covering an object that was not the work of Nature—it was the work of man.
Slowly the submarine swung round, her searchlight travelling the length of that mass of rusty, weed-encrusted iron and steel. Now the beams played upon a gaping gunport, its weapon still thrust aggressively forward, as if to repel an attack from above. Now the searchlight revealed a huge circular turret with a pair of monster guns; while beyond towered the fragments of a shattered bridge still carrying its silent semaphores.
Then, faintly outlined in the feeble ray, could be discovered a pair of funnels, both tottering through decay and held in position solely by the stout wire guys; while like a phantom could be traced the outlines of a mast with two military tops.
Already the submarine had gathered stern-way and was backing away from the threatening embraces of the shattered gear that surrounded the wreck, and as the vision faded slowly from their view both officers exclaimed simultaneously:—
"The Victoria!"
The two men had seen the melancholy relic of a disaster that, though it occurred twenty years ago, is still regarded as one of the most terrible that has ever overtaken the British Navy. Hidden from mortal eyes ever since the fatal day when the Camperdown rammed her, the Victoria lay in eighty fathoms of water, and now, by the wildest of coincidences, the submarine of the Olive Branch had descended nearly on top of the wreck of the ill-fated ship.
"If the reciprocators have fallen amongst that tangle they are hopelessly lost," remarked Lieutenant Palmer, indicating the position in which the wreck lay.
"That's what the grapnels fouled," added Gerald. "However, as the aeroplane sank its planes would doubtless cause it to describe a spiral-like motion. We may as well investigate all round the wreck. Have we backed sufficiently to turn?"
"I think so," replied Palmer, and ordering half-speed ahead, he thrust the helm hard over.
Seventy-five fathoms; only thirty feet from the bed of the sea. The searchlight was deflected till the lower sector of the ray was intercepted by the blunt nose of the submarine, while the light was of sufficient intensity to cast a faint luminosity over the wilderness of ooze that formed the floor of this marine desert.