s no longer any need for secrecy. Indeed there never has been
urgent need of it: the Professor and myself merely thought we might
provoke incredulity and comment if we stated the purpose of our trip
publicly."

He buttered a roll.

"We--the Professor and you and I--are going in for some deep sea diving.
And when I say deep, I mean deep. We are going to investigate conditions
as they exist one mile down from the surface of the ocean."

"A mile!" I exclaimed. "Why--"

There I stopped. I had only a layman's knowledge of such matters. But I
knew that the limit of man's submersion, till then at any rate, was a
matter of a few hundred feet.

"Sounds incredible, doesn't it," said Stanley with a smile. "But that's
what we're going to do--if the Professor's gadget works as he seems to
think it will."

"I don't think it, I know it," retorted the Professor. "And man, man,
the things we may see down there! New and unknown species--a world no
human has ever seen before--perhaps the secret of all of life--"

"Dragons, sea-serpents, and what not!" Stanley finished with a grin.

"Or, possibly--nothing at all." The Professor shrugged. "I mustn't let
my scientific curiosity run away with me. Perhaps we'll find no new
thing down down. Our deep sea dredging and classification may already
embrace most of the forms of life in the greater depths."

"If it does I want my money back," said Stanley. "When you asked me to
finance this expedition for you, I agreed on condition that you would
show me a thrill--some _real_ big game, even if I would not be able to
shoot it. If we draw blank--"

"The mere descent should satisfy you, my adventuring friend," replied
the Professor brusquely. "I think you'll find that thrilling enough."

"But--a mile under the surface!" I marveled, feeling not entirely
comfortable. "The pressure! Enormous! It can't be done! That is, I mean,
can it be done?"

"It had better be," said Stanley with a humor that I did not entirely
appreciate. "If it isn't, the three of us are going to be pressed out
like three sheets of tissue paper! For we are assuredly going down that
far in the Professor's gadget."

"Was that the thing I saw hoisted aboard just before we left?"

"That was it. We'll stroll around after lunch and look it over."

If I had taken this cruise in search of distraction--I was surely going
to be successful! That was plain!

"Just where are we going?" I asked. "You said something about the South