“All sand.”
“No rocks?”
“Not a one.”
“O.K., my girl—in you go.” The professor waved a hand, and in they went.
To the imaginative Doris, this fairyland of waving seaweed, darting fish, and drifting jellyfish was most entertaining, but she never forgot their real mission. “Dave!” she exclaimed more than once. “I see something!” A moment of excitement, and then—“No—it’s nothing but a bit of coral, after all.”
Then, of a sudden, a whisper reached her ear:
“One eighty—eighty-two and a half—eighty four—”
“Dave! He’s back! The whisperer is back!” Doris spoke before she thought.
“Why! Hello there, mermaid!” came in words startlingly distinct.
Doris and Dave remained silent. Who could this be? Where was he? On land, or in the sea? Or on it?