o long as he kept
a close watch on the diver with him, she finally agreed to the scheme.
Captain Jules gave the two girls every kind of instruction in the art of
diving that he thought necessary, and the day of the great watery
adventure was set for the week ahead.

On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, Madge awoke at daybreak. She felt a
delicious, shivery thrill pass over her that was one part fear and the
other part rapture.

"Phil," she whispered a few seconds later, when she heard her chum
stirring in the berth above her, "can you feel fins growing where your
feet are? Your flop in the bed sounded as though you were a real mermaid!
Just think, at ten o'clock sharp we are going down to explore a new
world! I wonder if there were ever any girl divers before? You are
awfully good to let me go down first."

"No, I am not," answered Phil soberly. "If there is any danger, I am
letting you go down to it first. But I shall watch above the water, with
all my eyes, to see that everything goes right. The captain has explained
the whole business of diving to us so thoroughly that I believe I can
tell if anything is wrong with you below the surface. You'll be careful,
won't you, Madge? You know you are usually rather reckless. Don't stay
down too long."

"Oh, Captain Jules won't let me be reckless this time. We are not going
down into very deep water, anyway, and a professional diver can stay
under several hours when the water is only about five fathoms deep."

Madge and Phyllis ate a very light breakfast. Captain Jules had told them
that a diver must never go down into the water on a full stomach, as it
would make him too short-winded. While the two prospective divers were
eating poor Miss Jenny Ann was wondering what had ever induced her to
give her consent to so mad an enterprise as this diving.

Every effort had been made to keep a crowd away from the pier from which
Captain Jules meant to send out the boats with the tenders, who were the
men to look after the safety of Madge and himself.

As the girls came up, with Miss Jenny Ann, to join Captain Jules they saw
twenty or thirty people about. Mrs. Curtis and Tom, accompanied by Philip
Holt, had come down to the pier. Mrs. Curtis would hardly speak to Madge,
she was so angry at the risk she believed the little captain was running.
She and Madge had not been very friendly since they had disagreed so
utterly in Madge's report of the real character and name of Philip Hol