134 TO DAVY JONES S LOCKER 



over. In the present instance the opposite was true and 

 this very fact makes any vivid record of feelings and emo- 

 tions a very difficult thing. At the very deepest point we 

 reached I deliberately took stock of the interior of the 

 bathysphere; I was curled up in a ball on the cold, damp 

 steel, Barton's voice relayed my observations and assur- 

 ances of our safety, a fan swished back and forth through 

 the air and the ticking of my wrist-watch came as a 

 strange sound of another world. 



Soon after this there came a moment which stands out 

 clearly, unpunctuated by any word of ours, with no fish 

 or other creature visible outside. I sat crouched with 

 mouth and nose wrapped in a handkerchief, and my fore- 

 head pressed close to the cold glass — that transparent bit 

 of old earth which so sturdily held back nine tons of 

 water from my face. There came to me at that instant 

 a tremendous wave of emotion, a real appreciation of what 

 was momentarily almost superhuman, cosmic, of the 

 whole situation; our barge slowly rolling high overhead 

 in the blazing sunlight, like the merest chip in the midst 

 of ocean, the long cobweb of cable leading down through 

 the spectrum to our lonely sphere, where, sealed tight, 

 two conscious human beings sat and peered into the 

 abyssal darkness as we dangled in mid-water, isolated as a 

 lost planet in outermost space. Here, under a pressure 

 which, if loosened, in a fraction of a second would make 

 amorphous tissue of our bodies, breathing our own home- 

 made atmosphere, sending a few comforting words chas- 



