pressure with which his body was wrapped by the liquid mass. His
respiration became less easy; the retractibility of his organs no
longer worked with as much ease as in the midst of an atmosphere more
conveniently adapted for them. And so he found himself under the action
of physiological effects to which he was unaccustomed. The rumbling grew
louder in his ears, but as his thought was always lucid, as he felt
that the action of his brain was quite clear--even a little more so than
usual--he delayed giving the signal for return, and continued to go down
deeper still.

Suddenly, in the subdued light which surrounded him, his attention was
attracted by a confused mass. It seemed to take the form of a corpse,
entangled beneath a clump of aquatic plants. Intense excitement seized
him. He stepped toward the mass; with his spear he felt it. It was the
carcass of a huge cayman, already reduced to a skeleton, and which the
current of the Rio Negro had swept into the bed of the Amazon. Benito
recoiled, and, in spite of the assertions of the pilot, the thought
recurred to him that some living cayman might even then be met with in
the deeps near the Bar of Frias!

But he repelled the idea, and continued his progress, so as to reach the
bottom of the depression.

And now he had arrived at a depth of from eighty to a hundred feet, and
consequently was experiencing a pressure of three atmospheres. If,
then, this cavity was also drawn blank, he would have to suspend his
researches.

Experience has shown that the extreme limit for such submarine
explorations lies between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and thirty
feet, and that below this there is great danger, the human organism not
only being hindered from performing his functions under such a pressure,
but the apparatus failing to keep up a sufficient supply of air with the
desirable regularity.

But Benito was resolved to go as far as his mental powers and physical
energies would let him. By some strange presentiment he was drawn toward
this abyss; it seemed to him as though the corpse was very likely to
have rolled to the bottom of the hole, and that Torres, if he had any
heavy things about him, such as a belt containing either money or arms,
would have sunk to the very lowest point. Of a sudden, in a deep hollow,
he saw a body through the gloom! Yes! A corpse, still clothed, stretched
out like a man asleep, with his arms folded under his head!

Was that Torres? In the o