"What's that?" suddenly and nervously cried Mr. Hardley. "Have
we struck something?"
"Yes, the bottom of the ocean," answered Tom quietly. "We are
now on the floor of the Atlantic, though several hundred miles,
and perhaps a thousand, from the treasure ship. We bumped the
bottom, that's all," and as he spoke he brought the submarine to
a stop by a signal to the engine room.
And there, as calmly and easily as some of the masses of
seaweed growing on the ocean floor around her, rested the
M. N. 1. It was a test of her powers, and well had she stood the
test, though harder ones were in store for her.
And inside the submarine Tom and his party were under scarcely
greater discomfort than they would have been on the surface.
True, they were confined to a restricted space, and the air they
breathed came from compression tanks, and not from the open sky.
The lights had to be kept aglow, of course, for it was pitch dark
at that depth. The sunlight cannot penetrate to more than a
hundred feet. But sunlight was not needed, for the craft carried
powerful electric lights that could illuminate the sea in the
immediate vicinity of the submarine.
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