In addition to the many wonderful vegetable forms that grew on
the ocean floor, some rivalling in beauty the orchids of the
tropics, and almost as delicate, there were the fishes, which
darted to and fro, now swiftly swimming beneath some coral arch,
and again poising around some mass of waving sea fronds.
"Well, let's get busy," called Tom to Ned through the
telephone. "We want to free the propellers and find the wreck of
the Pandora. She may be a hundred feet from us, or a mile away,
and in that case it's going to take longer to locate her."
Together they walked to the stern of the disabled craft. One
look at the propeller shafts, the examination being made by the
diffused glow from the searchlight, as well as from the electric
torches carried, showed that the diagnosis of the trouble was
correct.
Wound around both propellers was a mass of the serpent weed,
tightly bound because the machinery had whirled it around and
around after the grass had once been caught. It was almost as bad
as though manila cable had been thus accidentally fastened.
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