"Well, they are," said John. "If you should take the very tallest mountain there is in any part of the earth and put it down north of Porto Rico, so that the bottom of it shall rest on the bottom of the sea, the top of that mountain would be sunk clean out of sight, so that ships could sail over it just as safely as they sail in any part of the ocean.

"Of course a man would drown just as easily in a couple of fathoms of water as in this deep place; but it is perfectly horrible to think of sinking down, down, down into the very deepest water-hole on the face of the whole earth."

"Didn't you have any boats?" asked the young lady.

"We hadn't any," said John. "We had sold all of them about two months before to a British merchantman who had lost her boats in a cyclone. One of the things our captain wanted to get to St. Thomas for was to buy some more boats. He heard he could get some cheap ones there.

"Well, we pumped and sailed as well as we could, but we hadn't got anywhere near that sandy island the captain was making for, when, one morning after breakfast, our brig, which was pretty low in the water by this time, gave a little hitch and a grind, and stuck fast on something; and if we hadn't been lively in taking in all sail there would have been trouble. But the weather was fine, and the sea was smooth, and when we had time to think about what had happened we were resting on the surface of the sea, just as quiet and tranquil as if we had been a toy ship in a shop-window.

"What we had stuck on was a puzzle indeed! As I said before, our captain knew all about that part of the sea, and, although he knew we were in shallow soundings, he was certain that there wasn't any shoal or rock thereabout that we could get stuck on.

"We sounded all around the brig, and found lots of water at the stern, but not so much forward. We were stuck fast on something, but nobody could imagine what it was. However, we were not sinking any deeper, and that was a comfort; and the captain he believed that if we had had boats we could row to St. Thomas; but we didn't have any boats, so we had to make the best of it. He put up a flag of distress, and waited till some craft should come along and take us off.

"The captain and the crew didn't seem to be much troubled about what had happened, for so long as the sea did not get up they could make themselves very comfortable as they were. But there were two men on board who didn't take things easy. They wanted to know what had happened, and they wanted to know what was likely to happen next. I was one of these men, and a stock-broker from New York was the other. He was an awful nervous, fidgety, meddling sort of a man, who was on this cruise for the benefit of his health, which must have been pretty well worn out with howling, and yelling, and trying to catch profits like a lively boy catches flies. He was always poking his nose into all sorts of things that didn't concern him, and spent about half of his time trying to talk the captain into selling his brig and putting the money into Pacific Lard—or it might have been Mexican Balloon stock, as well as I remember. This man was tingling all over with anxiety to find out what we had stuck on; but as he could not stick his nose into the water and find out, and as there was nobody to tell him, he had to keep on tingling.

"I was just as wild to know what it was the brig was resting on as the stock-broker was; but I had the advantage of him, for I believed that I could find out, and, at any rate, I determined to try. Did you ever hear of a water-glass, miss?"

"No, I never did," said the Daughter of the House, who was listening with great interest.

"Well, I will try to describe one to you," said John Gayther. "You make a light box about twenty inches high and a foot square, and with both ends open. Then you get a pane of glass and fasten it securely in one end of this box. Then you've got your water-glass—a tall box with a glass bottom.

"The way that you use it is this: You get in a boat, and put the box in the water, glass bottom down. Then you lean over and put your head into the open end, and if you will lay something over the back of your head as a man does when he is taking photographs, so as to keep out the light from above, it will be all the better. Then, miss, you'd be perfectly amazed at what you could see through that glass at the bottom of the box! Even in northern regions, where the water is heavy and murky, you can see a good way down; but all about the tropics, where the water is often so thin and clear that you can see the bottom in some places with nothing but your naked eyes, it is perfectly amazing what you can see with a water-glass! It doesn't seem a bit as if you were looking down into the sea; it is just like gazing about in the upper air. If it isn't too deep, things on the bottom—fishes swimming about, everything—is just as plain and distinct as if there wasn't any water under you and you were just looking down from the top of a house.

"Well, I made up my mind that the only way for me to find out what it was that was under the brig was to make a water-glass and look down into the sea; and so I made one, taking care not to let the stock-broker know anything about it, for I didn't want any of his meddling in my business. I had to tell the captain, but he said he would keep his mouth shut, for he didn't like the stock-broker any more than I did.

"Well, miss, I made that water-glass. And when the stock-broker was taking a nap, for he was clean tired out poking about and asking questions and trying to find out what he might get out of the business if he helped to save the brig, the captain and I, with a few men, quietly let down into the water the aft hatch, one of those big doors they cover the hatchways with, and when that was resting on the water it made a very good raft for one man. And I got down on it, with my water-glass and an oar.

"The first thing I did, of course, was to paddle around the brig to the place where she had been stove in. She wasn't leaking any more, because the water inside of her was just as high as the water outside; so, if we could do anything, this was the time to do it. I looked down into the water on our starboard bow, and I soon found the place where the brig had been stove in, probably by some water-logged piece of wreckage. I located the hole exactly, and I reported to the captain, who was leaning over the side. Then I paddled around the brig to see if I could find out what we were resting on.

"When I had sunk my water-glass well into the water, and had got my head into the top of it, I looked down on a scene which seemed like fairyland. The corals and water plants of different colors, and the white glistening sand, and the fishes, big and little, red, yellow, pink, and blue, swimming about among the branches just as if they had wings instead of fins, that I told you of just now, were all there; and the light down under the water seemed so clear and bright that I could see everything under me that was as big as a pea."

"That must have been an entrancing vision!" said the Daughter of the House.

"Indeed it was," replied John Gayther. "But, would you believe me, miss? I didn't look at it for more than half a minute; for when I turned my water-glass so that I could look under the brig, I could not give a thought to anything else in the world except the astonishing objects our brig was resting on.

"At first I could not believe my eyes. I paddled around and around, and I put down my water-glass, and I stared and I stared, until I felt as if my eyes were coming out of my head! At last I had to believe what I saw. There was no use trying to think that my eyes had made a mistake. It was all just as plain to me