e a look about the craft to see if those chaps
did any damage. They can't have done much, though, or she wouldn't be
running so smoothly. Suppose you go take a look, Tom, and ask your
father and Mr. Sharp what they think. I'll steer for a while, until we
get well away from the island."

The young inventor found his father and the balloonist busy in the
engine-room. Mr. Swift had already begun an inspection of the
machinery, and so far found that it had not been injured. A further
inspection showed that no damage had been done by the foreign guard
that had been in temporary possession of the Advance, though the
sailors had made free in the cabins, and had broken into the food
lockers, helping themselves plentifully. But there was still enough for
the gold-seekers.

"You'd never know there was a storm raging up above," observed Tom as
he rejoined Captain Weston in the lower pilot house, where he was
managing the craft. "It's as still and peaceful here as one could wish."

"Yes, the extreme depths are seldom disturbed by a surface storm. But
we are over a mile deep now. I sent her down a little while you were
gone, as I think she rides a little more steadily."

All that night they speeded forward, and the next day, rising to the
surface to take an observation, they found no traces of the storm,
which had blown itself out. They were several hundred miles away from
the hostile warship, and there was not a vessel in sight on the broad
expanse of blue ocean.

The air tanks were refilled, and after sailing along on the surface for
an hour or two, the submarine was again sent below, as Captain Weston
sighted through his telescope the smoke of a distant steamer.

"As long as it isn't the Wonder, we're all right," said Tom. "Still, we
don't want to answer a lot of questions about ourselves and our object."

"No. I fancy the Wonder will give up the search," remarked the captain,
as the Advance was sinking to the depths.

"We must be getting pretty near to the end of our search ourselves,"
ventured the young inventor.

"We are within five hundred miles of the intersection of the
forty-fifth parallel and the twenty-seventh meridian, east from
Washington," said the captain. "That's as near as I could locate the
wreck. Once we reach that point we will have to search about under
water, for I don't fancy the other divers left any buoys to mark the
spot."

It was two days later, after uneventful sailing, partly on the surface