She had just sighted a school of tiny perch when a strange and apparently impossible sight caught her gaze. Faint, but quite unmistakable, there came to her mental vision a circle of gold, and within that circle these letters and figures: D.X.123.
One moment it was there. The next it was blotted out by the passing of that school of small fish. When the fish had passed, the vision too was gone.
“I didn’t see it at all,” she told herself. “It was just a picture flashed on the walls of my memory—something I saw long ago. It is like the markings on an airplane—the plane’s number. But it really wasn’t there at all.
“I have it!” she exclaimed. “That must be the number on the airplane that carried us here. I’ll look and see when I get back.”
She straightened up to look about her. As she did so, she realized that the sun had gone under a cloud. Disquieting thought, this may have been the reason for the vanishing picture in the depths below.
“The fish hid it. Then the sun went under that cloud. I must look again.” She settled down to await the passing of that cloud.
“What if I see it again?” she thought. “Shall I tell the others? Will they believe me? Probably not. Laugh at me, tell me I’ve been seeing things.
“I know what I’ll do!” She came to a sudden decision. “I’ll bring Vivian up here and have her look. I’ll not tell her a thing, but just have her look. Then if she sees it I’ll know—”
But the sun was out from behind the cloud—time to look again.
Her heart was beating painfully from excitement as she shaded her eyes once more.