The old man rang my bell; I was ordered up to the control tower. Randall was telling some one in the passage: “That finishes our schedule, all right; we’ll be all night on this job.” Arturo followed me. “What’s the Malaysia?” “Surface vessel,” Randall called after us. “An old roamer. She’s sinking, they don’t know why. Piled to the funnels with cargo; she’ll go down like a stone. They ought to keep those old traps in the rivers--” “Where is she?” He told us. Less than a degree and a half away, north by west, well off our course. Already we were swinging, and mounting to the surface. Arturo stuck to my elbow. He was always unobtrusive. The old man allowed him the run of the ship, partly because he liked the boy, and also because of Dr. Plantet’s influence and the considerable investment he had made when our line was financed. Arturo was excited and awed. The sea held for him a curious fascination. It did for me also, but in a wholly different way. To me the sea was primarily a world of mechanisms; of mathematical charts, schedules to be maintained; a scientific business to be handled with skillful exactitude. To Arturo it seemed still to be a world of fairy romance, or a mighty monster in its anger. To his eyes its surface still held scudding ships of ancient fashion; argosies sailing hopefully over the storm-lashed waves toward unknown shining harbors. Or, again, his fancy saw a realm of monsters, hideous, fearsome things of the deeps, coming up to frighten the sturdy mariners of old; or oceanids disporting themselves on the beaches of desert islands; sirens with soft luring voices. Or sea horses, racing the Ægean waves with the car of Poseidon. A fairy world of dreams. To him our throbbing steel mechanisms were the unrealities, the anachronisms. He was wildly excited now at the shipwreck call. But there was nothing to see; nothing to hear. The one hurried signal that Randall had picked up was the last. We reached the scene and cruised the surface. A litter of wreckage floating in a wan moonlight on an oily sea. We dived as far as we dared. But even under our brilliant lights there was nothing significant to be seen. The Malaysia had gone on down. We were not far from the Marshall ridge here, but there were still several thousand fathoms down to this floor of the great Pacific basin. The Malaysia had gone, and we could not follow her. * * * * *