now it came upon us suddenly and not without a touch of
awe. This absence of sound and light, this unchanging
motionlessness and coolness, this absolute negation--that was the
bottom of the sea. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment we
realized acutely the meaning and joy of sunshine and moving
winds, trees, and the world of men.

A minute light twinkled out like a star, and then another and
another, until the boat was bright again, and we knew that among
the other wonders of this most astonishing of inventions there
was storage electricity which would keep the boat illuminated for
hours, without so much as a single turn of the dynamo. With the
stopping of the engine, the air supply from above had ceased; but
Mr. Lake laid his hand on the steel wall above us, where he said
there was enough air compressed to last us all for two days,
should anything happen. The possibility of "something happening"
had been lurking in our minds ever since we started. "What if
your engine should break down, so that you couldn't pump the
water out of the water compartments?" I asked. "Here we have
hand-pumps," said Mr. Lake promptly; "and if those failed, a
single touch of this lever would release our iron keel, which
weighs 4000 pounds, and up we would go like a rocket."

I questioned further, only to find that every imaginable
contingency, and some that were not at all imaginable to the
uninitiated, had been absolutely provided against by the genius
of the inventor. And everything from the gasoline engine to the
hand-pump was as compact and ingenious as the mechanism of a
watch. Moreover, the boat was not crowded; we had plenty of room
to move around and to sleep, if we wished, to say nothing of
eating. As for eating, John had brought out the kerosene stove
and was making coffee, while Jim cut the pumpkin pie. "This isn't
Delmonico's," said Jim, "but we're serving a lunch that
Delmonico's couldn't serve--a submarine lunch."

By this time the novelty was wearing off and we sat there, at the
bottom of the sea, drinking our coffee with as much unconcern as
though we were in an up-town restaurant. For the first time since
we started, Mr. Lake sat down, and we had an opportunity of
talking with him at leisure. He is a stout-shouldered, powerfully
built