At last the diving bell gained the edge of the forest and came to a rest upon one of the banks of moss of many colors. A short distance away the bank sloped downward into a sort of valley. Here it was darker, and what there was at the bottom of the valley there was no telling without an investigation. Should they leave the diving bell upon an exploring tour? They debated the subject for several minutes. It would be a risky thing to do, although as yet they had encountered no strange fish or marine monsters at this great depth. With care they adjusted their diving suits and then armed themselves with their knives and submarine guns. Then the door of the bell was opened slowly. The pressure of the water became enormous and their suits of steel creaked as if to crash in upon them, as a shell can squeeze in upon the inside of an egg. But they had calculated upon all this, and the suits held as expected. When they stepped out upon the moss they found it as soft and yielding as a thick velvet carpet. They advanced with caution toward the edge of the slope before them, casting their eyes continually upon all sides for the first sign of danger. They had thus gone a distance of two hundred feet when Dave pointed to a mound to their right. He had seen something strange moving among the moss. Of a sudden the moss was uplifted like a blanket and the young diver fell back in amazement. Before him stood a monster as startling as it was horrible. Whether it was fish, beast, or demon, he could not tell, but it was certainly so awful that his very heart appeared to stop beating as he gazed upon it. It had a long, round body, fat and blubbery, with two legs in the center, two arms near the neck, and at the end the tail of a fish. The head was shaped like a huge pear, with eyes blinking savagely from either side of a nose which was as long and pointed as a cow's horn. The mouth of the demon was wide open, showing a double row of sharp, bluish teeth and a tongue covered with yellow slime. All told, the creature was at least ten feet long, and when it stood up it towered well over the heads of the two divers. On the instant Dave raised his gun, but his father was before him, and a bullet from Amos Fearless' submarine gun took the demon squarely in the breast. Hardly had the bullet reached its mark than the demon uttered a roar which rang in the divers' ears like thunder. As if by magic the roar was answered from half a dozen near-by places and the moss was flung right and left. The demons of the ocean's bottom had been sleeping, and the roar had aroused them to a sense of danger. They came walking and swimming up from every direction, and in a twinkle Amos Fearless and Dave found themselves surrounded and hopelessly cut off from the diving bell! CHAPTER XXIX THE ESCAPE FROM THE DEMONS It was a situation calculated to make the stoutest heart quail.