The bottom seemed to be heaving up and down. I blinked my eyes and looked again. It was not an illusion. With a regular dip and rise we were approaching to within a few feet of the rocky floor and moving back up again. Also we were floating faster than at anytime previous. The bottom was bare again; we had left the crowding, ominous mounds.
I waved to the Professor. He snapped his notebook shut and stared at the uneasy ocean bottom.
"I've been hoping I was wrong," he said simply. "I thought I felt a wavy motion fifteen minutes ago, and it seemed to me to increase steadily."
The three of us stared at each other.
"You mean ..." began Stanley with a shudder.
"I mean that the Rosa, one mile above us, is having difficulties. A storm. Judging from our movement it must be a hurricane: the length of cable would cushion us from any average wave, and we are rising and falling at least fifteen feet."
"My God!" groaned Stanley. "The Rosa is already heeled with the weight of us. She could never weather a hurricane!"
The plight of the crew above our heads was as clear to us as though we had been aboard with them.
Should they cut the cable, figuring that the lives of the three of us were certainly not to be set against the thirty on the yacht?
Should they disconnect the electric control and try to haul us up regardless?