"Here you are, boys; see the whole panorama of the sea bottom unfolded before you," remarked the superintendent as he directed attention downward through the aquascope. The lads looked in turn and saw the sea-bottom plainly revealed, with all its sandy bottom and its jagged contour of shells and marine life. The floor of the _Nautilus_ was, in fact, so close to the bottom that it was almost touching. Brown at once gave the signal to the engine room of the mother ship that stopped the _Nautilus_. With another flip of the air pressure he raised the flooring of the chamber and there lay the limpid waters of the Sound, held in check completely even at this depth by the pressure of air within the chamber! "By Jove! You just stopped in time," exclaimed Captain Austin as he turned from one of the forward ports. "What do you mean, Captain?" asked Superintendent Brown. "Look here," replied "Cap," indicating the port and motioning the fleet superintendent to look out into the green haze of water. CHAPTER XIV AN UNEXPECTED FIND Closing the aquascope of the _Nautilus_ with a quick turn of the air control, Superintendent Brown stepped lightly across the diving compartment of the new salvage ship to the side of the fleet captain. "What's up, Cap?" he inquired casually. Austin was peering intently straight ahead through the water. The _Nautilus_ was moving slowly to and fro with the rise and fall of the tide, but her progress forward through the water had been checked by a signal to the engine room of the mother ship, the _Jules Verne_. "Looks like we had accidentally run upon a wreck our first day out." Captain Austin had his gaze firmly directed upon the outlines of some object near at hand, the character of which he was not at all able to make out as yet. Perhaps it was just a shifting sand formation; or possibly an apparition in the water due to the passage of the sun behind clouds, or a school of fish in the bay. Superintendent Brown took up his station at another port just to the left of the captain. His eyes by now, directed by Brown, rested on the identical object that had first claimed the attention of the captain. "Blamed if I don't think you are right, Austin," remarked the superintendent after a bit. He suggested that the _Nautilus_ be moved forward slightly in order that the two might get a more comprehensive view of the "phantom ship" that had loomed out of the mist like some specter of the deep that Jules Verne himself had conjured in "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." Cap Austin fell in with the idea, and at once took down the telephone connecting with the _Jules Verne_. "Move us forward until I give you one bell and then stop right on the trigger," was the order to the engine room of the mother ship. Instantly the _Nautilus_ was propelled forward through the water. At the ports stood the two officials straining their eyes intently.