TO DAVY JONES S LOCKER 1 3 I 



light, so that only their thin-lipped mouths and tiny eyes 

 were turned toward me. 



Before Barton went back to his instruments, three 

 squids shot into the light, out and in again, changing from 

 black to barred to white as they moved. They showed no 

 luminescence. 



At 10:44 we were sitting in absolute silence, our faces 

 reflecting a faint bluish sheen. I became conscious of 

 the pulse-throb in my temples and remember that I kept 

 time to it with my fingers on the cold, damp steel of the 

 window ledge. I shifted the handkerchief on my face and 

 carefully wiped the glass, and at this moment we felt the 

 sphere check in its course — we felt ourselves press slightly 

 more heavily on the floor and the telephone said "1400 

 feet." I had the feeling of a few more meters' descent and 

 then we swung quietly at our lowest floor, over a quarter 

 of a mile beneath the surface. 



I pressed my face against the glass and looked upward 

 and in the slight segment which I could manage I saw a 

 faint paling of the blue. I peered down and again I felt 

 the old longing to go further, although it looked like the 

 black pit-mouth of hell itself — yet still showed blue. I 

 thought I saw a new fish flapping close to the sphere, but 

 it proved to be the waving edge of the Explorers' Club 

 flag — black as jet at this depth. 



My window was clear as crystal, in fact clearer, for, 

 as I have said before and want to emphasize, fused quartz 

 is one of the most transparent of all substances and trans- 



