“Left? Oh, you mean that you’ve submerged?”
“You bet you! We’ve been down nearly four hours now. I’ve seen a few rough nights in my short but eventful life, kid, but last night had ’em all beat! We was shufflin’ around here like dice in a box. How you ever lived in the water is what gets me!”
“How far down are we? Are we sitting on the bottom?”
“Sitting on the bot—say, where do you think you are? New York harbor? There ain’t no bottom here, or if there is it would take a day to find it! We’re a hundred and twenty feet under, or were an hour ago, and we’re doing about four knots.”
“Gosh!” exclaimed Nelson in awed tones. “A hundred and twenty feet below the surface! Isn’t that a lot?”
“It ain’t too much in this rumpus, kid, believe me! Have some coffee? I’d give you some hash, but they said you wasn’t to eat till the luff seen you. Here he comes now.”
The lieutenant was a man of about thirty-two or -three years of age, short, squarely-built, bearded, round of face and dressed in a stained uniform whose gold braid was dulled and discolored. He had a gruff voice and an all-enveloping smile.
“Hello, Neptune!” he greeted. “All ready to go back where you belong, are you? We’re going to shoot you out a tube in a minute.”
“No, sir.” Nelson saluted weakly, and smiled. “Not quite yet, sir.”