"I should say so, from the feel of it," answered Mr. Henderson. "Put your hand on the side of the cabin."
Andy laid his fingers against the steel plates. He drew back.
"I burned myself!" he exclaimed.
"What are we to do?" cried Jack.
"Get out of this by all means!" exclaimed the inventor. "If we stay in this hot ocean we will be boiled alive like fishes in a pot. Send the ship up, Washington!"
Indeed it was high time. The thermometer marked one hundred and ten degrees, and was rising. The interior of the Porpoise was like that of a steam laundry three times heated. Stripped to their undergarments the adventurers were obliged to lie down on the floor of the cabin where it was a little cooler.
It was all Washington could do, used as colored people are to the heat, to go into the engine room, and start the machinery that emptied the tanks, so as to allow the ship to mount to the surface.
The Porpoise began to rise slowly, and to the suffering men and boys it seemed that she never went up so reluctantly. The heat was becoming unbearable. They could hear the water bubbling even through the steel sides of the submarine.