n bottom.

"I've been hoping I was wrong," he said simply. "I thought I felt a wavy
motion fifteen minutes ago, and it seemed to me to increase steadily."

The three of us stared at each other.

"You mean ..." began Stanley with a shudder.

"I mean that the _Rosa_, one mile above us, is having difficulties. A
storm. Judging from our movement it must be a hurricane: the length of
cable would cushion us from any average wave, and we are rising and
falling at least fifteen feet."

"My God!" groaned Stanley. "The _Rosa_ is already heeled with the weight
of us. She could never weather a hurricane!"

The plight of the crew above our heads was as clear to us as though we
had been aboard with them.

Should they cut the cable, figuring that the lives of the three of us
were certainly not to be set against the thirty on the yacht?

Should they disconnect the electric control and try to haul us up
regardless?

Or should they try to ride out the storm in spite of being crippled by
the drag of us?

"I think if I were up there I'd cut us adrift," said Stanley grimly.
Both the Professor and myself nodded. "Though," he added hopefully, "my
captain is a good gambler...."

* * * * *

The cable quivered like a live thing under the terrific strain. At each
downward swoop, before the upswing began, there was a sickening sag.

"We no longer have a decision to make," said the Professor. "Press the
key, Martin, and God grant we can rise with all this dead weight."

And at that instant the crew of the _Rosa_ were also relieved of the
necessity for making a decision.

At the bottom of one of those long, sickening falls there was a
jerk--and we continued on down to the ocean floor!

The sphere rolled over, jumbling the equipment in a tangled mess with
the three of us in the center, bruised and cut. The light snapped off as
the battery connections were torn loose.

There we lay at the bottom of Penguin Deep, in an inert sphere that was
dead and dark in the surrounding blackness--a coffin of glass to hold us
through the centuries....

* * * * *

"Martin," I heard the Professor's voice after a time. "Stanley--can
either of you move? I'm caught."

"I'm caught, too," came Stanley's gasping answer. "Something on my
leg--feels like it's broken."

A heavy object was pressing across my body. With an effort I freed
myself and fumbled in the pitch darkness for the other