passed through Philip Holt's mind his pressure on Madge's air-pump had
wavered. But Phyllis Alden had discovered it. She gave him no opportunity
either for action or regret.

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE PEARL

Madge felt herself in a great fairy world peopled with giants. Every
thing below the water is magnified a thousandfold. Slowly she went down
and down! The fishes splashed and tumbled about her, hurrying to get away
from this strange, new sea-monster that had come into their midst.

The little captain felt no mental sensation except one of wonder and of
awe; no physical impression save a pressure as of a great weight on her
head and a roaring of mighty waters in her ears. She no longer had any
idea of being afraid.

At the first plunge into the water she had shut her eyes, but now, as she
approached the bottom of the bay, she kept them wide open.

The water was clear as crystal, like the reflection in a mammoth mirror.
She could see nearly fifty feet ahead of her. Captain Jules walked just
in front of her, swinging his great body from side to side, peering down
into the sandy bottom of the bay. Madge discovered that the only way in
which she could get a view, except the one directly in front of her, was
by turning her head inside her helmet, to look through her side window
glasses. The goggles over her eyes gave her just the view that a horse
has with blinkers.

There were hundreds of things that Madge would have liked to confide to
Captain Jules. However, for once in her life, she was compelled to hold
her tongue. Her eyes, her hands, and her feet she could keep busy. Now
and then she gave a little ejaculation of wonder inside her copper helmet
at the marvels she saw. No one heard her cry out. Captain Jules wasted no
time. He was exceedingly business-like. He motioned to Madge just where
she should go and what she should do, and she obediently followed.

There were long, level flats of sand in the bottom of Delaware Bay, like
small prairies. Then there were exquisite oases of waving green seaweed,
gardens of sea flowers and ferns, and hillocks of rocks, with all sorts
of queer sea animals, crabs, jelly-fish, and devil-fish, scurrying about
them.

Caught in the moss, encrusted on the rocks, sunken in the yellow sands,
were opalescent, shining shells and pebbles, each one more beautiful than
the last. Madge did not realize that if she carried these shells and
pebbles above the water they would look like