“I am sure it is a great service,” Mildred exclaimed. “But professor! What spooky waters those are down there!”
“Yes, they are spooky,” the professor agreed. “But today, I take it, they were not whispering?”
“No,” the girl agreed. “The whisperer seems to have vanished.”
“These little undersea journeys always make me hungry,” said Dave. “Come on Mildred—let’s have a cup of tea.”
Seated under a colored umbrella on deck, they sipped their tea in silence. Mildred was thinking—“I wonder if this is the time to ask him?”
It was Dave who at last broke the silence.
“Well, Mildred,” he said, “you behaved very well for the first time down. I was wondering—”
“If a girl could take it,” she smiled. “Down here we just have to—all the time.”
“How so?” he asked in surprise. “In what way?”
“Well, only a few days ago grandfather lost his motorboat. It’s somewhere at the bottom of the sea, but not far down. I wasn’t on board when it sank. And now,” she hesitated, “now fresh dangers appear to threaten us, and we have no boat either for trading or—or for escape!”