t-house found to talk about so long. The water was extremely clear,
as they had seen it in the Bahamas, and they were watching the bottom,
composed entirely of rocks. Morris occasionally thrust down a
long-handled boathook whose length he had measured, and it gave him
thirteen feet about every time.

With her bunkers full of coal as they had been when she left Alexandria,
the Maud drew twelve feet of water, and by this time she had reduced it
six inches. She was approaching the shore, and she could not continue
much farther. Scott did not explain his plan in detail, and only said
that he intended to escape if he could. He had a theory in regard to the
formation of the bottom of the bay, which had twenty fathoms of water at
a distance of a mile from the shore.

He had a theory in regard to the subject which was by no means a novel
one, that the bottom of the sea was similar in its features to the
surface of the land. If the face of the country was rugged and uneven,
so was the bottom of the sea near it. On Cape Arnauti the hills rose to
the dignity of mountains, and some of the soundings at the entrance of
the inlet were over a hundred fathoms, which confirmed his theory in its
application to this particular locality.

Otherwise stated, Captain Scott believed that if all the water in the
bay could be suddenly dried up, the bottom of it would present the same
irregularities as the shore. Doubtless his theory was correct in regard
to the great oceans. Islands are only the tops of submarine hills and
mountains rising above the surface of the water.

The captain steered the Maud directly towards the shore, while the
steamer was making not over five knots an hour. He kept one eye on the
rocky cone on the starboard hand, which was an elevation on the enormous
ledge of half an acre.

"Where's the bottom, Morris?" he called to the first officer when the
steamer was abreast of the cone.

"Thirteen feet down," returned Morris.

"Heave the lead on the port hand, Flix," added the captain very quietly;
and he seemed to be still in a brown study.

"Mark under water two," reported the Milesian.

"Give the depth in feet now."

"Thirteen feet, short."

"Keep the lead going."

For about a quarter of a mile farther Scott kept the Maud moving in the
same direction, with no change in the reports of the soundings. The
great ledge could still be seen from the windows of the pilot-house; but
suddenly the color changed to a darker