"I'll just be careful not to run afoul of that big boy's lines down here," Jay told himself. It was not so easy to defend against an attack of any kind under water clad in heavy diving habiliments. Groping his way forward steadily inch by inch, Jay figured soon he must be in the neighborhood of those ships' ribs. The breathing was good and the air lines were working fine under the expert direction of his chum. These two had teamed together before; always when one of them was down the other looked after the equipment above deck, keeping a sharp eye on the air pump to see there was no let-up in its functioning. Pretty soon Jay saw something looming up directly ahead. For the moment it assumed fantastic shape and the youth was unable to determine whether it was just some sort of an apparition or some tangible substance. But only for a moment. In another instant the specter of the wrecked ship filtered through the greenish haze of the water into the eyes of the groping diver; a weird spectacle that danced and eddied to the tilt of the waters like the wavering film of a cinematograph. "By George! there she is," gasped Jay to himself in sheer delight. In spite of his accustomed self-complacency and cool nerve the youth found his pulses fluttering wildly. "And now to get busy," he murmured to himself, picking his way laboriously over a sand hummock. The sea muck was so loose that the young diver's ponderous shoes settled deep into it at each stride. But the water was clear and the precious oxygen was coming to him in steady relays from the _Nemo's_ pump. "What could have become of that chap Weddigen?" speculated Jay as he strained through the windows of his eyes for some trace of the other diver. Not a hint of him in any direction. At last the youth came to the side of the wreck. His sense of direction and implicit obedience to instructions had carried him right. He had arrived directly where the nose of the _Dominion_ had imbedded itself in the sand. "Good enough," he thought, as he gazed upward to where the torn timbers lifted themselves toward the surface of the sea. One glance indicated that the _Dominion_ lay listed slightly to port in such a slanting position that her bow was elevated at something like an angle of thirty degrees. Groping his way along the side of the old freighter the persevering young diver found to his great delight that the tides and deep water currents had banked in sand all along the side of the _Dominion_. Like a pillow ridge this sand supported the weight of the lost cargo-carrier. "This makes it all the easier; I can walk right aboard without any formalities," laughed Dick as he dropped to his hands and knees. He figured it would be easier going "doggey" fashion than to attempt to walk up the side of the incline and run the risk of sinking deep into the fluid underfooting.