We had given up all hope of being rescued by Commodore Farragut. We were proceeding westwards, and I estimated our speed at twelve miles an hour. The screw revolved regularly, sometimes emerging and throwing phosphorescent jets of water to a great height.
About 4 a.m. the speed increased. We had some difficulty in resisting this giddy pace, as the waves beat upon us in full volume. Fortunately Ned felt a large ring, let in to the upper part of the iron back, and we fastened ourselves to it securely.
This long night at length came to an end.
My imperfect recollection cannot recall all the impressions of those hours. One detail comes to my mind. During certain lulls of the wind and waves, I fancied I could hear, vaguely, a sort of fugitive harmony, produced by distant chords. What was, then, this mystery of submarine navigation, of which the world was vainly seeking the key? What kind of beings inhabited this vessel? What mechanical agency permitted them to move at such a prodigious rate?
Daylight appeared. The morning mists wrapped us in their folds, but soon dispersed. I was making a careful survey of the hull, which formed, at its upper part, a sort of horizontal platform, when I found myself sinking by degrees.
“Eh! thousand devils,” cried Ned Land, striking the iron a sounding blow with his foot. “Open, I say, you inhospitable travellers!”
But it was no easy matter to make them hear while the screw was working, Fortunately the descent was arrested.
Suddenly a noise, as of bars being pushed back within
