Dinner was sometimes eaten five hundred feet below the surface. Then while Washington washed the dishes and cleaned up the galley, Jack and Mark looked from the side windows at the strange life under water.
They were getting farther south now and the water was warmer as the equator was approached. This produced a great variety of animal life, and the ocean fairly swarmed with fishes, big and little, strange and curious that could be seen from the glass bull's-eyes.
Great sharks swam up alongside of the Porpoise, keeping pace with her in spite of her speed. Their cruel tigerish eyes and ugly mouths made the boys shudder as they looked at the creatures. Then came odd creatures that seemed neither of the land or sea, but which swam along with their horrible bodies flapping up against the glass. One and all, the inhabitants of the ocean seemed to resent the intrusion of the submarine.
One day the boys turned the light out in the cabin and sat in the darkness the better to observe the fishes. The sea, in the vicinity of the ship, was illuminated with a sort of glow that diffused from the searchlight.
Suddenly, as the boys were watching, there came a thud on the glass window at the port side. They glanced in that direction to see some horrible thing peering in at them through the window.
At first they were greatly frightened. Two big eyes of green, with rims of what looked like red fire, stared at them, and, there was an ugly mouth lined with three rows of teeth.
"It's only a fish," said Mark.
"Well, I wouldn't like to meet it outside," said Jack. "I'd rather be here. My, but it's a nasty sight!"
"Let's give Washington a little scare," suggested Mark.
"How?"