motion of the officers and sailors on board was now divided between
the prisoners in the projectile and the prisoners of the submarine
apparatus. These latter forgot themselves, and, glued to the panes of
the port-lights, they attentively observed the liquid masses they were
passing through.

The descent was rapid. At 2.17 p.m. J.T. Maston and his companions had
reached the bottom of the Pacific; but they saw nothing except the arid
desert which neither marine flora nor fauna any longer animated. By the
light of their lamps, furnished with powerful reflectors, they could
observe the dark layers of water in a rather large radius, but the
projectile remained invisible in their eyes.

The impatience of these bold divers could hardly be described. Their
apparatus being in electric communication with the corvette, they made a
signal agreed upon, and the Susquehanna carried their chamber over a
mile of space at one yard from the soil.

They thus explored all the submarine plain, deceived at every instant by
optical delusions which cut them to the heart. Here a rock, there a
swelling of the ground, looked to them like the much-sought-for
projectile; then they would soon find out their error and despair again.

"Where are they? Where can they be?" cried J.T. Maston.

And the poor man called aloud to Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan,
as if his unfortunate friends could have heard him through that
impenetrable medium!

The search went on under those conditions until the vitiated state of
the air in the apparatus forced the divers to go up again.

The hauling in was begun at 6 p.m., and was not terminated before
midnight.

"We will try again to-morrow," said J.T. Maston as he stepped on to the
deck of the corvette.

"Yes," answered Captain Blomsberry.

"And in another place."

"Yes."

J.T. Maston did not yet doubt of his ultimate success, but his
companions, who were no longer intoxicated with the animation of the
first few hours, already took in all the difficulties of the enterprise.
What seemed easy at San Francisco in open ocean appeared almost
impossible. The chances of success diminished in a large proportion, and
it was to chance alone that the finding of the projectile had to be
left.

The next day, the 24th of December, notwithstanding the fatigues of the
preceding day, operations were resumed. The corvette moved some minutes
farther west, and the apparatus, provisioned with air again, took the
same