"We have other protection than running away," said the young inventor quietly. "There are guns we can use, and, if the whales had been far enough away, I could have sent a small torpedo at them. Close by it would be dangerous to use that, as it would operate on us just as the depth bombs operated on the German submarines. However, I fancy we have nothing more to fear."
And Tom was right. When the surface was reached and the main hatch opened, the sea was calm and there was no sight of the whales. They evidently had had enough of their encounter with a steel fish, larger even than themselves.
"But they surely were monsters," said Ned, as he told of how he and Koku had sighted the animals; for a whale is an animal, and not a fish, though often mistakenly called one.
"Koku was for attacking them with his axe," went on Ned, "but I motioned to him to beat it. We wouldn't have stood a show against such creatures. They were on us before we noticed their coming, but I presume the big submarine attracted them away from us."
"It might have been the lights you carried that drew them," suggested Tom. "I am glad you came out of it so well."
Mr. Hardley seemed to recover some of his former manners, once the peril was passed, but his conduct had been a revelation to Mr. Damon.
"Tom," said the eccentric man in private to the young inventor, "I'm disgusted with that fellow. I don't see how I was ever bamboozled into taking up his offer."
"I don't, either," replied Tom frankly. "But we're in for it now. We've agreed to do certain things, and I'll carry out my end of the bargain. However, I won't put up with any of his nonsense. He's got to obey orders on this ship! I know more than he thinks I do!"
The next two days the M. N. 1 progressed along on the surface, and nothing of moment occurred. Then, as they neared southern waters, and Tom desired to make some observations of the character of the bottom, it was decided to submerge. Accordingly, one day the order was given.
Not until the gauge showed a hundred fathoms, or six hundred feet, did the craft cease descending, and then she came to rest on the bottom of the sea—a greater depth than she had yet attained on this voyage.