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CHAPTER V
WHISPERING DEPTHS

Johnny had an active mind. Figuring and planning were almost continuous activities with him. Sometimes he really tried to slow the process up, but his mind would keep right on, figuring and planning.

As he rowed slowly back to the boat, his thoughts were particularly active. There were things to be done. He would see that they were done, in the end; he surely would. By going down in the steel ball as many times as Dave wanted him to, and by taking pictures, he’d put Dave in debt to him. Then he’d persuade Mildred to go down in the steel ball. Dave would like that. Then, at just the right time, he and Mildred would ask Dave to help find that trading boat at the bottom of the sea, and to float it once more.

Then they would get busy on those spies, he and Mildred and—and anyone else who would help. It was a patriotic duty, by thunder! It surely was! In his mind’s eye he saw the map of the Caribbean Sea, these islands at one side, the Panama Canal on the other. If the Europeans got these islands, what would happen to the canal? Filled with rocks and mud—that was the answer! They’d bomb the very daylights out of it. Yes, they must uncover those spies—at least some of them. He wondered whether the green arrow would show tonight, and whether he would be able to make any sense out of the numbers he had written down in his notebook.

“It’s some sort of code,” he told himself repeatedly. “If I can decipher it we may get somewhere.”

But here he was alongside the Sea Nymph, and Dave was saying:

“Hello, Johnny. We’re shifting our position tonight—coming in a little closer. Tomorrow afternoon I’d like you to go down with me to get some pictures. You won’t mind, will you?”

That was exactly what Johnny had planned. “No, I won’t mind,” he said, “that will be keen.”

A mist drifted out over the ocean. All that night Johnny paced the deck in a chill fog. No green light showed from the island hills. Once he thought he heard men’s voices, but nothing came of it. He was glad enough when he could crawl into his berth, draw his blankets over him, and lose himself in sleep.

When he awoke the sun was shining. It was mid-afternoon, and Dave was waiting for him to appear, for their trip below.

“What a life!” he murmured. After he had gulped some hot coffee, hurriedly bolted some seabiscuits and a piece of pie he reappeared on deck.

“All ready?” Dave asked.

“Soon as I get my camera and things.”

“Good! I’ll have the steel ball in shape P.D.Q.,” Dave grinned, good-naturedly.

“He’s really a nice chap,” Johnny thought. “Only he takes science and discovery pretty seriously. I suppose we’ll discover some saber-toothed viper fish, or maybe some flying snails!” He smiled at his thoughts. Life was not half bad after all.

Half an hour later he was experiencing such thrills as only the deep, deep sea could bring. Some five hundred feet beneath the surface of the sea he sat doubled up in his place, staring at an ever changing panorama. A rocky wall, not twenty feet from him, stood up like a sky-scraper, straight and tall. Here and there it was broken by fissures and caves. Everywhere it was festooned with sea vegetation—seaweed, kelp, anemones. All these, with coral that rose like Gothic architecture, were entrancing.

Dave was by his side—not to admire, but to record. The look on his face was almost solemn. As they moved slowly downward Dave spoke into a small microphone and Doris, up on deck, recorded his words. Strange words they were, too: “A school of parrot fish; three hatchet fish; two round-mouths; a golden-tailed serpent dragon; a—oh—oh!—Hold everything!”

At that instant Dave’s window was opposite a dark cavern. As he threw on a more powerful light he caught the gleam of two, great eyes. How far apart they were!

Despite his efforts to remain calm, Johnny’s heart skipped a beat as, at Dave’s command, he touched his moving-picture camera and set it recording. What sort of creature was this? A whale? A blackfish? Or some strange, unknown denizen of the deep? Suppose at this instant it should become enraged, should rush out of its hiding place and drag the steel ball out into the deep—to send it crashing against the rocky wall? A broken window would mean instant death. And yet Johnny’s hand did not tremble as he adjusted his camera....

Just after the steel ball had gone over the side, Mildred Kennedy, in her dugout canoe, had arrived for a visit. It had called for real courage, this little journey. From a distance these Sea Nymph people had seemed so serious. All but Johnny. “But it’s not decent to stay away and not be properly sociable,” she had told her grandfather. So here she was.

There had been time only for a brief word of welcome from Doris. After that, whispering excitedly—“Dave and Johnny are below in the steel ball. It—it’s dreadfully thrilling, even here on deck,” Doris had clamped a pair of head-phones over her guest’s ears and had whispered tensely:

“Listen!”

So they were seated on the deck of the Sea Nymph, listening intently for reports from below. At the same time, they talked.

“I came to visit my grandfather,” Mildred said, “just as sort of a lark. I was storm bound indoors for two weeks, and when I saw how simple and kind the natives were, the happy, free life they lived, and yet how many things could be done for them, I wanted to stay. So I just did. And I am glad. Only—” A shadow passed over her face.

“Listen!” Doris held up a finger. “Thought I heard a whisper. It—it couldn’t be Dave! I—I hope nothing has gone wrong. It’s truly dangerous being down there, and yet one does learn so much—”

“Shish!” Mildred held up a finger. “I—listen—I hear a whisper! It—it’s numbers he’s saying. How strange!”

As the two girls sat in silence, pressing the phones to their ears, listening with their every sense, they caught—in a low whisper:

“Two hundred—and—eight—and a half. Ten. No—now a drop—thirty, thirty-one—two—three—”

Then Dave’s voice boomed through, drowning out the whisper. “O.K. We saw some sort of monster,” he was saying. “He was in one of these caverns and Johnny got his picture—we hope! Wish you were down here.”

“So do we!” Doris’ voice exclaimed. “We heard a whisper. Thought you might—”

“You’ve been dreaming!” Dave boomed back. “Forget it—and tell that man at the cable to let us down again, slowly. Boy!—how I do want to see things!”

Yes, Dave wanted to see things. Most of all, on this particular day he wished to go down—down—down into the watery depths, to discover, if possible, just how far down, sea vegetation and coral were to be found.

“If only I don’t find bottom too soon,” he thought. “And if the sea remains calm.”

The sea. He shuddered a little at this. If the anchors held—all would be well. But if they should give way—that would be truly terrible. To the right and left of them, not a quarter-mile apart, were parallel walls of rock. To be dragged against one of these—? Who could tell what disaster might result!

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime, as they listened, the two girls talked of many things, of home, of thrilling tropical nights, of Mildred’s sunken schooner and