126 TO DAVY Jones's locker 



We had left the deck at ten o'clock, and it was twenty- 

 five minutes later that we had again reached our record 

 floor — 800 feet. This time I had no hunch — reasonable 

 or unreasonable — and three minutes later we were passing 

 through a mist of crustaceans and flapping snails at 900 

 feet. We both agreed that the light was quite bright 

 enough to read by and then we tried Pica type and found 

 that our eyes showed nothing definite whatever. With the 

 utmost straining I could just distinguish a plate of figures 

 from a page of type. Again the word "brilliant" slipped 

 wholly free of its usual meaning, and we looked up from 

 our effort to see a real deep-sea eel undulating close to the 

 glass — a slender- jawed Serrivomer, bronzy-red as I knew 

 in the dimly-remembered upper world, but here black 

 and white. 



At 1000 feet we had a moment's excitement when a 

 loop of black, sea-serpenty hose swung around before us, 

 a jet-black line against blackish-blue. 



Almost at once the sparks we had seen higher up be- 

 came more abundant and larger. At 1050 feet I saw a 

 series of luminous, colored dots moving along slowly, or 

 jerking unsteadily past, similar and yet independent. I 

 turned on the searchlight and found it effective at last. 

 At 600 feet it could not be distinguished; here it cut a 

 swath almost material, across my field of vision, and for 

 the first time, as far as I know, in the history of scientific 

 inquiry, the life of these depths was visible. The searing 

 beams revealed my colored lights to be a school of silver 



