"Tell them yes," said Davis. "In five minutes." He compressed his lips. The _Esperance's_ device, though clumsy, was fundamentally simple. Five minutes later the top of the central spar was level with the water. "Cut away," said Davis. Doug slashed the single rope holding the dredge. It sank immediately. The recorder gave off the sound of waves. Occasionally, very occasionally, a chirping or a grunt could be heard. Twenty minutes. Thirty. There was a "crump!" from the loudspeaker which reported underwater events. The sound seemed to come from very far below. Even a small amount of explosive makes a very considerable concussion when it goes off so far down, and the shock travels in all directions instead of merely upward. The recorder picked up that concussion as a deep-bass sound. The sun shone. The wind increased. Waves marched in serried ranks from here to there. A long, long time later the inflated canvas bag came up and was floating on top of the waves. The _Pelorus_ whistled. Nick went below. A few minutes later he came up again to report. "The _Pelorus_ says not to cast our dredge adrift. They're sending the bathyscaphe down unmanned, to test all apparatus before a manned dive. They don't want any debris in the sea." "Tell them we send them a kiss," snapped Davis, "and they needn't worry!" The _Esperance_ approached the floating bag. Jug swung out on the lifting boom and hooked it. The winch hauled it out of the water. The concrete weights were gone. What the nets had captured was not pretty to see. A dead fish with foliated appendages had come up from far below, to judge by what its unpunctured swim bladder had done to it in uncontrolled expansion. Davis said curtly it was _Linophrine arborifer_, belonging two thousand fathoms below. An angry-looking creature, similarly dead, was _Opisthoproctus grimaldi_. It belonged deeper than the other. There were other specimens. A _genostoma_ of a species the books didn't picture; a _Myctophum_; and various other creatures, mostly as grotesque as their scientific names. All were abyssal fish. They had died while rising from a pressure of several tons per square inch to surface-pressure only. "It worked," said Davis curtly. "I almost wish it hadn't. Let it down into the water again. We'll jettison it when the _Pelorus_ gives us permission." Time passed. More time. Still more. The bathyscaphe was now in the water, practically awash. Only a small conning tower showed above the waves. Men swarmed around it. There came a query from the _Pelorus_. The _Esperance_ gave assurance that the deep-sea dredge had returned to the surface and would be kept there. The bathyscaphe was allowed to sink. The recorder on the yacht began to pick up deep-toned mooing sounds from the depths. Presently, the mooing sounds ceased. Two hours later, waves broke over an object completely awash on the ocean. The _Pelorus_ steamed cautiously toward it. Boats went down from her sides and surrounded the float.