CHAPTER III
A BRIGHT EYED BEACH-COMBER
Johnny went at once to a darkroom that had been quickly prepared in the hold. Pictures could be taken on land in what appeared to be complete darkness; he knew this from his work with Lee Martin. But would the utter blackness beneath the sea be the same? He would know, soon.
He watched the films with absorbed interest. As the developer took hold, he saw nothing but blackness.
“Nothing there!” he muttered disappointedly. “Wasted shots. We—”
But wait! Was something coming out? Yes! There it was! An indistinct, shadowy form!
His thoughts leaped ahead. His pictures were to be a success. He would be asked, times without number, to go down in that darkness and take more pictures. Dangerous work, but he had to be a good sport, and besides, it was splendid experience for him.
The strange, undersea creatures, some very large, with heads as long as their bodies, with fantastic buck teeth and hideous eyes, some small and snakelike and some as normal looking as any fish to be found near the surface, came out clearly visible on the film.
“Perfect!” was the professor’s enthusiastic reaction when Johnny showed him damp prints a few hours later. “A real contribution! And you took them in complete darkness!”
“In what appeared to be complete darkness,” Johnny corrected. “I did it with an infra-red light screen. That screen shuts out all but the infra-red rays. Eyes can’t see the light of these rays.
“Of course,” he went on, “we might have used a flood light, but that would have frightened those creatures away. As it is, we got them in what you might call a natural pose. Candid camera shots from the deep sea,” he laughed.