The long sinuous strands of ocean grass, known
under the name of "serpent weed," had caught around the whirling
propellers and there had been wound and twisted very tightly.
Just as sometimes the stern line gets so tightly twisted around a
motor boat propeller as to require hours of work with an axe to
free it, the seaweed was twisted around the blades of the
M. N. 1.
Slowly the undersea craft came to a stop, and there she
remained, floating freely enough, but a few feet above the bottom
of the ocean. There was a look of alarm on the faces of Ned and
Mr. Damon, but Tom Swift smiled.
"This is annoying, and may cause us delay," he announced, "but
there is no danger."
"How are we to get free from the weed?" asked Mr. Damon. "We
can't move if it's wound around our propellers, can we?"
"Not very well," Tom answered. "But all that will have to be
done will be for some of us to put on diving suits, go out and
chop the strands of weed away. We can do it more easily than
could an ordinary vessel, for they would have to go into dry dock
for the purpose.
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