“He’s not going to die!” exclaimed Mark. “Here I have another plan. Washington bring that medical electrical battery from the engine room.” This was a small machine the professor had brought along for experimental purposes.
Quickly adjusting it, Mark placed the handles in the nerveless fingers of Mr. Henderson. Then he started the current. In about a minute the eyelids of the aged inventor began to quiver, and, in less than five minutes he had been revived sufficiently to enable him to sit up. He passed his hand across his forehead.
“What has happened?” he asked in a faint voice.
“I don’t know; none of us knows,” Mark answered. “We all lost our senses when it got so hot, and there seemed to be some peculiar vapor in the air. The last I remember was seeing some horrible shape rush from the storeroom, soon after the ship struck. Then I fainted away. When I woke up I managed to turn the lights on, and then I came back here.”
“I wonder where we are,” the old man murmured. “I must find out. We must take every precaution. Washington, go and look at the gage indicating our depth.”
The colored man was gone but a few seconds. When he returned his eyes were bulging in terror.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Henderson, who, thanks to the battery, had almost completely recovered.
“It ain’t possible!” gasped Washington. “I’ll never believe it!”
“What is it?” asked Mr. Henderson, while the others waited in anxiety for the answer.
“We’re five hundred miles down!” declared Washington.