supply, and as their top fin
expanded into a balloon they again began to rise.

One thing, however, perplexed the young man: the water about him
seemed jet black rather than blue. They must by now be close to the
surface of the sea, where at least a twilight blue should be visible.
Even at the one mile depth in his bathysphere, the water had been
brilliant, yet here, almost at the surface, he could see absolutely
nothing.

He switched on the searchlight again to make sure that their window
wasn't clouded over; but it wasn't.

Then suddenly a rippling veil of pale silver appeared ahead; then a
blue-black sky and twinkling stars. They had reached the surface, and
it was night.

He pointed out the stars to the girl at his side, then swung the nose
of the submarine around and showed her the moon.

Where next? George Abbot picked out his position by the stars and
headed east. East across the Pacific, toward America.

* * * * *

But soon he noticed that their little craft was dropping beneath the
surface. He kept heading up more and more; he threw the lever for more
and more chemical gas; yet still they continued to sink.

"Milli!" he exclaimed, "we've got to get out of here!"

She clutched him in fear, for to her the pressure of the open sea
meant death, certain death. But he pushed her firmly away, and
unclamped the lid of the submarine. In another instant he had hauled
her out and was battling his way to the surface, while their little
boat sunk slowly beneath them.

Milli was an experienced swimmer, for the undersea folk enjoyed the
privilege of a large indoor pool. As soon as she found that the open
sea did not kill her, she became calm.

Side by side they floated in the moonlight. The sky began to pink in
the east. Dawn came, the first dawn that Milli had ever seen.

Suddenly she called George's attention to two bobbing heads some
distance away in the path of light the rising sun made on the ocean.

"Hakin and Romehl!" he exclaimed. Long since they had given them up
for dead; but evidently fate had treated them in much the same way as
themselves.

And a moment later his own salt-stung eyes noticed a long gray shape
to one side.

As the day brightened, Abbot suddenly noticed a large bulking shape
nearby.

It was his own boat!--the one which had lowered him into the depths in
his bathysphere so many weeks and weeks ago! Evidently it was still
sticking around, grappling