“You go bottom now?” he asked, hopefully.
“No,” said Johnny, happily. “But we are safe, man! I’m signalling them to draw us up!”
“No go bottom?” There was a suggestion of disappointment in Samatan’s voice.
Suddenly Johnny thought he understood. Samatan had expected to see bottom. That was what he had wanted, and it explained his strange eagerness to go down. But why? What did he expect to see there?
Johnny, however, was far too eagerly awaiting the first, faint gleam of light as they rose, to think much more about Samatan’s behavior.
The strange “dawn beneath the sea” came to him once again. Such a glorious dawn! He was to live on! What a privilege it became, suddenly, just to live! The ball rose free of the water, to swing about and bump gently down to the deck. A few moments later, the professor and Doris were gripping his hands and demanding to know what had happened.
“What in the world went wrong?” they asked, in chorus.
“We ran into a school of monsters.” Johnny was now able to laugh at his predicament. “They must have taken us for a ride, I guess!”
“What kind of monsters?” The professor was so serious his voice trembled.
“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” the boy replied, soberly, “but here goes. They had heads twice as large as their bodies! And those heads! If only their mouths had been a little larger, they might have swallowed our steel ball at one gulp!”