The ship’s course was then changed so as to reach this exact point.
At forty-seven minutes past twelve they reached the buoy; it was
in perfect condition, and must have shifted but little.
“At last!” exclaimed J. T. Maston.
“Shall we begin?” asked Captain Blomsberry.
“Without losing a second.”
Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette almost
completely motionless. Before trying to seize the projectile,
Engineer Murchison wanted to find its exact position at the
bottom of the ocean. The submarine apparatus destined for this
expedition was supplied with air. The working of these engines
was not without danger, for at 20,000 feet below the surface of
the water, and under such great pressure, they were exposed to
fracture, the consequences of which would be dreadful.
J. T. Maston, the brothers Blomsberry, and Engineer Murchison,
without heeding these dangers, took their places in the
air-chamber. The commander, posted on his bridge, superintended
the operation, ready to stop or haul in the chains on the
slightest signal. The screw had been shipped, and the whole
power of the machinery collected on the capstan would have
quickly drawn the apparatus on board. The descent began at
twenty-five minutes past one at night, and the chamber,
drawn under by the reservoirs full of water, disappeared
from the surface of the ocean.
The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was now
divided between the prisoners in the projectile and the
prisoners in the submarine apparatus. As to the latter, they
forgot themselves, and, glued to the windows of the scuttles,
attentively watched the liquid mass through which they were passing.
The descent was rapid. At seventeen minutes past two, J. T.
Maston and his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific;
but they saw nothing but an arid desert, no longer animated by
either fauna or flora. By the light of their lamps, furnished
with powerful reflectors, they could see the dark beds of the
ocean for a considerable extent of view, but the projectile was
nowhere to be seen.
The impatience of these bold divers cannot be described, and
having an electrical communication with the corvette, they made
a signal already agreed upon, and for the space of a mile the
Susquehanna moved their chamber along some yards above the bottom.
Thus they explored the whole submarine plain, deceived at every
turn by optical illusions which almost broke their hearts.
Here a rock, there a projection from the ground, seemed to be
the much-sought-for projectile; but their mistake was soon
discovered, and then they were in despair.
“But where are they? where are they?” cried J. T. Maston. And the
poor man called loudly upon Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan,
as if his unfortunate friends could either hear or answer him
through such an impenetrable medium! The search continued under
these conditions until the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.
The hauling in began about six in the evening, and was not ended
before midnight.
“To-morrow,” said J. T. Maston, as he set foot on the bridge of
the corvette.
“Yes,” answered Captain Blomsberry.
“And on another spot?”
“Yes.”
J. T. Maston did not doubt of their final success, but his
companions, no longer upheld by the excitement of the first
hours, understood all the difficulty of the enterprise.
What seemed easy at San Francisco, seemed here in the wide
ocean almost impossible. The chances of success diminished in
rapid proportion; and it was from chance alone that the meeting
with the projectile might be expected.
The next day, the 24th, in spite of the fatigue of the previous
day, the operation was renewed. The corvette advanced some
minutes to westward, and the apparatus, provided with air, bore
the same explorers to the depths of the ocean.
The whole day passed in fruitless research; the bed of the sea
was a desert. The 25th brought no other result, nor the 26th.
It was disheartening. They thought of those unfortunates shut
up in the projectile for twenty-six days. Perhaps at that
moment they were experiencing the first approach of suffocation;
that is, if they had escaped the dangers of their fall. The air
was spent, and doubtless with the air all their _morale_.