Through the long afternoon of that long spring day they waited, and the world waited, but still there came no word. Night fell, but a veil of silence had dropped upon the submarine, and when morning came it found Stevens and his friends still waiting in vain by the silent impersonal instruments. Through all that night the calls of a score of stations to the submarine had gone unheeded, and when the morning newspapers gave to the public the first news of the _K-16's_ long silence, they stated openly that some mishap or disaster must have overtaken the submarine. Only young Stevens and his friends remained steadfast in their optimism, and even they began to doubt as the 12th passed and still no message came. By night it was universally believed that the submarine had met disaster, and out on the Atlantic a half-dozen steamers were heading toward the spot where it had last reported its position. By the morning of the 13th the public was informed through the early editions that the ships rushing to the submarine's aid had been unable to find any trace of it whatever, though they had circled repeatedly over the spot. By that time, too, it was pointed out that the submarine's air-supply would be getting very low, even if it still remained intact beneath the surface. The general opinion, though, by then, was that Clinton in over-confidence had ventured to too great a depth in the submarine, and that it had been crushed by the terrific pressure. Even at the university it was tacitly conceded that this must be the case. Concerning the strange last message from the _K-16_ there was still discussion, but even that was capable of more than one explanation. It was pointed out that Clinton was an ardent zoologist, and that the discovery of some entirely new form might have caused the exaggerated language of his message. Stevens, who knew the calm and precise mentality of his superior rather better than that, would not believe in such an explanation, but was unable to devise a better one to fit that sensational last report. It was the general belief, therefore, that in his excitement over some new discovery Clinton had ordered his submarine to a depth too great, and had met disaster and death there beneath the terrific pressure of the waters. Certainly, whatever its defects, there was no other theory that fitted the known facts so well.