“Clang! Clang!”
“Stop her!” boomed out in the engine room.
“Back her!”
“Come ahead—slow!”
“Stop!”
“Thank gracious that’s over,” breathed Jack as he shut down the motors and wiped his hands on a bit of waste, “I expected every minute to feel us hit the side of the cave as we dived, and then—good night!”
“It reminded me of coming through that hole in the reef.”
“Almost as uncomfortable,” agreed Jack, “but hark! There’s Silas opening the hatch. We’re not needed here, let’s go on deck.”
They found the White Shark lying in an immense pool of water almost crystal clear. Above them rose the rocky dome of a huge cave. All this was illumined by a powerful light which Silas had been ordered to carry on deck.
The White Shark lay against a sort of platform of stone from which the stairs upon which Mr. Jameson had blundered appeared quite plainly leading up to regions above. “Well, we’ve been in some queer places,” declared Jack, “but this has it a little bit on all of them. Look at those stalactites hanging from the roof. They’re as big as telegraph poles.”