I did know! Frantically I scrambled in the dark till I located the batteries. They were right side up and still wired together. The air grew rapidly foul with no one at the pump. Panting for breath I blundered at the task of connecting the light. After what seemed an eternity I accomplished it. The light revealed Stanley with an air tank lying across his leg. The mouthpiece of his breathing tube had been forced back over his head, gashing his face in its journey. His face was white with pain. The Professor was caught under the heavy bench. I freed him and together we attended to Stanley, finding that his leg wasn't broken but only badly bruised. The mound-shaped monster, dislodged possibly by the fall, was nowhere to be seen. I resumed work at the pump, the connections of which were so strongly contrived that they had withstood the shock of the upset. For a moment we were content to rest while the air grew purer. Then we were forced squarely to face our fate. * * * * * The Professor summed up the facts in a few concise words. "We're certainly doomed! Here at the bottom of Penguin Deep we're as out of reach of help as though we were stranded on the moon. We're as good as dead right now." "If we have nothing left to hope for," whispered Stanley after a time, "we might as well close the air valves and get it over with at once. No use torturing ourselves...." The Professor moistened his lips. "It might be wise." He turned to me. "What's your opinion, Martin?" But I--I confess I had not the stark courage of these two. "No! No!" I cried out. "Let's keep on living as long as the air holds out. Something might happen--" I avoided their eyes as I said it, utterly ashamed of my cowardly quibbling with death. What in the name of God could possibly happen to help us? The Professor shrugged dully, and nodded. "I feel with Stanley that we ought to get it over in one short stab. But we have no right to force you...." His voice trailed off. We readjusted our mouthpieces. I turned automatically at the pump; and we silently awaited the last suffocating moment of our final doom. * * * * * As before, attracted by the light, a strange assortment of deep-sea life wriggled and darted about us, swimming lazily among the looped coils and twists of our cable which had settled down around us. Among these were certain fish that resembled great porcupines. Spines a foot and a half long, like living knife blades, protected them from the attacks of other species. They were the only things we saw that were not constantly writhing away from the jaws of some hostile monster--the only things that seemed able to swim about their own affairs without even deigning to watch for danger.