He paused. I stammered suddenly: “You’ve been building a ship--but the deeps? Why, it’s unthinkable!” “But it is not, Jeff! Oh, the great deeps are beyond us with the water that now lies over them; they are safe from our prying eyes. But I can penetrate two thousand fathoms!” I think I had never seen him so vehement; a triumph upon him, an excitement almost boyish with this enterprise the product of his genius and intrepidity. “I’ve been working on it a long time, Jeff--from the very first reports of the abnormal tides. Polly will tell you how I’ve worked. If we can locate this enemy, even determine beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is such an enemy, what a stimulus to our own preparations for defense--the possibility perhaps of our nation making an attack and carrying the warfare down to them!” * * * * * Just to-day, he said, they had tested the hull of his tiny ship for that depth. Two thousand fathoms--twelve thousand feet! The craft was a tiny affair indeed! A crew of three or four. A little dolphin, flashing under the sea with a speed up to seventy knots. “In barely two weeks we’ll be ready, Jeff. Oh, they haven’t stinted me; the government has stood ready with its funds and all its resources. I’ve had materials from a dozen countries rushed here by the fastest wasps we could commandeer. I’ve had the pick of all the technical men developing this new principle. Hydraulics--internal, reciprocating pressure, call it what you will, we haven’t named it yet--and I’m using the new Parodyne atomic engine. “It’s nearly ready--the cleanest running little thing--Parodyne himself believes we’ll get seventy knots. The Australian Commonwealth Through Mail is planning to stop their flyer at Norfolk and carry us over the Pacific. Set us down where we like to begin our voyage. A diving range of two thousand fathoms, Jeff--we’ve tested it for that, with a fair margin of safety. And I can get another five hundred of littoral region with the Franklin searchlights.” Two thousand fathoms! The great unknown oceans, with this little dolphin of a ship flashing down into them to such a depth! And I was to be on board! It set a thrill upon me. So might Columbus have felt when from the queen’s fair hand came the money that made his voyage possible. But it must have been a thrill both of eagerness and of fear. Two thousand fathoms? Why, we could skim the sides of the Tonga and Marshall Ridges; follow the Marianne Trench to where it yawned into the Nero Deep. Two thousand fathoms? What gullies might we explore! What troughs and furrows could we traverse up the steep slopes to the island-bearing rises! Why, what a realm of the unknown to bring so suddenly to our ken! Dr. Plantet was saying: “You’ll go, Jeff, of course. Ah, now you see why I’ve kept you here--to be my navigator. I could not find one I would sooner trust, for all your youth. If our world is to be assailed, we’ll locate the point of attack--”