Victor Appleton

“ Of course they had their air tanks with them, and also the telephones, by means of which they could communicate with one another.
As they emerged into the warm waters surrounding the submarine they disturbed thousands of small fish which were feeding all about. Like ocean swallows, the creatures scattered in all directions, some even brushing the divers as they slowly made their way toward the stern of the craft.
"Nice place here," said Ned to Tom, as they walked along, Koku coming just behind them. ”

“ Just once again, before the craft reached the surface, was there another blow, this time at the stern. But it was a parting tap, and none others followed.
"They've gone!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, as the whales vanished from the sight of those in the forward cabin.
"Have you any adequate protection against these monsters of the deep?" asked Mr. Hardley in a fault-finding voice. "I should think you would have taken precautions, Swift!"
He had dropped the formal "Mr." and seemed to treat Tom as an inferior.
"We have other protection than running away," said the young inventor quietly. ”

“ Tom Swift arrived at a sudden determination. Once again the motors were stopped, and the boat gradually assumed an even keel.
"What are you going to try, Tom?" asked Ned.
"I'm going to shove her farther into the mud bank," announced the young inventor. "I think that's the only way to get her loose."
"Bless my apple pie, Tom!" cried Mr. Damon, "doesn't that seem a foolish thing to do?"
"It's the only thing to do, I believe," was the answer. "This mud is of a peculiar sticky and holding kind. The sub's nose is in it like a peg in a hole. ”

“ Slowly the undersea craft came to a stop, and there she remained, floating freely enough, but a few feet above the bottom of the ocean. There was a look of alarm on the faces of Ned and Mr. Damon, but Tom Swift smiled.
"This is annoying, and may cause us delay," he announced, "but there is no danger."
"How are we to get free from the weed?" asked Mr. Damon. "We can't move if it's wound around our propellers, can we?"
"Not very well," Tom answered. "But all that will have to be done will be for some of us to put on diving suits, go out and chop the strands of weed away. ”

“ Sometimes Ned or Mr. Damon went with him, but Mr. Hardley could never be induced to ride in an airship.
"I'll travel on the ocean or under it," he said, "but I'm not going to take a chance in the air. I'm too afraid of falling."
"Tom, what's this?" asked Ned one day, when he and Tom had come to see how the work of remodeling the submarine was getting along. "It looks like something you used when you dug your big tunnel."
"That's a new kind of diving bell," Tom answered. "You know it isn't easy to get treasure out of a sunken ship. It isn't like picking it off the bottom of the ocean. ”

“ Swift," went on the seeker after the ocean's hidden wealth. "I will bear half the expense of fitting out a submarine, or for any other kind of expedition to go in search of the wreck of the Pandora. I will furnish you with the exact nautical location, as I have it. And when the wealth is found and brought to the surface, I will give you half—in other words at least a million dollars! Does that appeal to you?"
"I must say it is a fair, though perhaps strange, offer," conceded Tom. "And a million dollars is not made every day nor every year. ”

“ Hardley, "why can't you give me an answer now?"
"Because," answered Tom, "there are many things to be considered. Hunting for a treasure on the floor of the Atlantic isn't like going to some location on land, however wild or inaccessible it might be. Do you realize, Mr. Hardley, what a large difference in miles a small error in nautical calculations makes? We might go to the exact spot where you thought the wreck of the Pandora lies, only to find that we would have to hunt around a long time. ”

“ They lashed about with their sharp-pointed tails, and more than one blow fell on the suits of the divers.
Had there been the least penetration, of course almost instant death would have followed. For the sea, at that depth and pressure, entering the suits would have ended life suddenly. But Tom had seen to it that the suits were well made and strong, with a lining of steel. And however great a thickness of leather the devil fish could send his sting through, it could not overcome steel. ”

“ Damon, and he, too, for the first time, seemed ready to break with Hardley. "If I were a bit younger I'd go out with you myself and help save Ned."
"Koku and I can do it—if he's still alive!" murmured the young inventor. "Lively now, boys! Is that gun ready?"
"Yes, and doubly charged," was the answer. "Good! I may need it. Koku, take a gun also!"
"Me take axe, Master," replied the giant.
"Well, perhaps that will be better," Tom agreed. "If two of us get to shooting under the water we may hit one another. Quick, now! The helmets. And, Nash, you work the big searchlight!" ”

“ Tom replied. "We have planted them in different spots on the ocean bed. Some will drift farther than others. Some are large and some are small. By striking an average we may be able to tell about how far from the supposed location of the Pandora we ought to look for her."
The night passed without incident and as calmly and peacefully as though they were all in some deep cave beneath a great mountain. In the morning after breakfast Tom and his friends went outside the submarine again and noted the weighted objects. Some had drifted farther than others. ”

“ Isn't there some way? I'll be shot through a torpedo tube, if necessary! I must get out! I can't stay here to be drowned! I have too much at stake!"
"Now wait a minute!" calmly advised Tom Swift. "You haven't any more at stake than the rest of us. None of us wants to be drowned, and there is only a remote possibility that we shall be. I haven't played all my cards yet. We can live on this boat for a week, if need be."
"You mean under water as we are now?" asked Mr. Hardley. ”

“ Slowly the starting lever was thrown over. There was a low humming and whining as the current jumped from the batteries, and a slight vibration of the craft. Tom looked at the movable pointer which showed the speed and direction of the propellers. The hand oscillated slightly and then stopped.
"Shut off the current!" cried Tom. "It's of no use. The propellers are held as tight as a drum! We've got to go out and cut loose the serpent weed!" ”

“ A number of horse mackerel were caught and exhibited as sharks, but, as you can easily see, their mouths lack the under-shot arrangement of the shark, and they are not built at all as are the man-eaters."
"Bless my toothbrush!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "Still, between a horse mackerel and a shark there isn't much choice!"
Mr. Hardley, with a shudder, turned away from the glass windows, and Tom glanced significantly at Ned. It was another exhibition of the man's lack of nerve.
"We'll have trouble with him before this voyage is over," declared the young inventor to his chum, a little later. ”

“ Swift for attending to business," said Mr. Hardley, with a short laugh. "Business is what keeps the world moving. And we are a little ahead of our schedule, as a matter of fact. May I ask where you are going, Mr. Swift?"
"To Bedford, to call on a Mr. Barton Keith," answered Tom quickly, looking the adventurer straight in the eyes.
Mr. Hardley was a good actor, or else he was a perfectly innocent man, for he showed not the least sign of perturbation. ”

“ Tom Swift's reconstructed craft compared favorably with the best and largest ever made, though she was not of exceptional size. She was very strong, however, to allow her to go to a great depth, for the farther down one goes below the surface of the sea, the greater the pressure until, at, say, six miles, the greatest known depth of the ocean, the pressure is beyond belief. And yet is possible that marine monsters may live in that pressure which would flatten out a block of solid steel into a sheet as thin as paper. ”

“ I'm only mentioning this to show you it isn't so easy to get at the wealth under the sea as writers in Sunday newspaper supplements think it is."
"I believe you, Tom. And yet it seems a shame to have all those millions going to waste, doesn't it?" And Ned spoke as a banker and financial man, who is not happy unless money is earning interest all the while.
"Well, a billion of dollars is a lot," Tom admitted. "And when you think of all that have been sunk, say even in the last hundred years, it amazes one. ”

“ He spoke truly, for indeed the torpedo had created fearful havoc. The full extent of it was not observed until Tom, Ned, Koku and two of the crew had put on diving suits and approached the hulk. She lay on her side on the sandy bottom, heeled over somewhat, and when the investigators had walked around her, as they were able to do, they saw a second, and even larger hole in the opposite side.
"Two submarines must have attacked her," said Ned, speaking through his telephone to Tom. ”

“ Damon's friend is getting anxious to make a start, particularly as he has already invested several thousand dollars in the project," went on the young inventor. "He formed a company to pay half the expenses of the search, and they will share in the treasure—if we find it," Tom said. "I wish Mr. Damon, who holds most of the shares the promoter let out of his own hands, had not gone into it, but, since he has, I'm going to do the best I can for him."
"Then aren't you friendly with the other man?" asked Mary. ”

“ This wealth of untold millions has been at the bottom of the sea for many years—always increasing with nobody ever spending a cent of it. And since the Great War this wealth has been enormously added to because of the sinking of so many ships by German submarines."
"Well, what's that got to do with us, Ned?" asked Tom, as he looked over some blue prints and other papers on his desk, for the talk was taking place in his office. "You and I did our part in the war, but I don't see what all this undersea wealth has to do with us. ”

“ For it takes the same sort of outfit to aid the man in the diving bell as it does the diver in his usual rubber or steel suit. Air has to be pumped to him, and he has to be lowered and raised."
"Well, isn't there any way of getting at this gold on the floor of the ocean?" asked Ned, his enthusiasm a little cooled by the practical "cold water" Tom had thrown.
"Oh, yes, of course there is, in a way," was the answer of the young inventor. "Don't you remember how my father and I, with Mr. Damon and Captain Weston, went in our submarine, the Advance, and discovered the wreck of the Boldero?" ”

“ Tom put his best men to work, and, after a consultation with his father, decided on some radical changes in the craft.
"Tom, my boy," said the aged Mr. Swift, "I wish you weren't going on this trip."
"Why, Dad?" asked the young inventor.
"Because I fear something will happen. We don't really need this money, and suppose—suppose—"
"Oh, I'm not worrying, Dad," was the answer. "I've taken worse risks than this, many a time. I'm really doing it as a favor to Mr. Damon. He's got too much money invested to let him lose it. And we can use a million dollars ourselves. ”

“ A little later Tom Swift, with Ned, for whom he called, was on his way back home in his Air Scout, having said goodbye to Mary and her mother and expressing the hope that Mr. Keith would soon be over his business troubles.
"Oil wells are queer, anyhow," mused Tom.
Then Tom got to thinking about Dixwell Hardley: "I don't like the man, and the more I see of him the less I like him. ”

“ And Tom was right. When the surface was reached and the main hatch opened, the sea was calm and there was no sight of the whales. They evidently had had enough of their encounter with a steel fish, larger even than themselves.
"But they surely were monsters," said Ned, as he told of how he and Koku had sighted the animals; for a whale is an animal, and not a fish, though often mistakenly called one.
"Koku was for attacking them with his axe," went on Ned, "but I motioned to him to beat it. We wouldn't have stood a show against such creatures. ”

“ Turning to the giant who apparently had not paid much attention to the talk over the wire, Tom said:
"Koku, go over to shop number ten, ask for the foreman, and he'll keep you busy. There are some five-hundred-pound castings that need assembling, and you can help him."
"Good!" exclaimed the giant, with a cheerful grin. "Koku like big work—no like sweep. Good for women and Rad, but not for Koku!"
"He spoke the truth there," remarked Ned Newton, as the giant stalked down the hall. "I never saw such a strong man. ”

“ Hardley.
"That's what I'm going to do!" answered Tom, as he began to put on the suit of steel and rubber, an example followed by Koku.
"But you may be attacked by the monster! You may be killed! You are risking your life!" cried the gold seeker.
"I know it." Tom spoke simply. "Ned would do the same for me!"
"But hold on!" cried Mr. Hardley. "If you are killed there will be no one to navigate this boat to the place of the wreck! You can't desert this way!"
Tom gave the man one look of contempt. "You need have, no fears," he said. "This submarine is under international maritime laws. ”

“ I mean has any of the wealth been recovered lately—or is it in a way to be?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Ned. "It is! A company has been formed in Japan for the purpose of using a new kind of diving bell, invented by an American, it seems. The inventor claims that in his machine he can go down deeper than ever man went before, and bring up a lot of this lost ocean wealth."
"Well, every so often an inventor, or some one who calls himself that, crops up with a new proposal for cleaning up the untold millions on the floor of the Atlantic or the Pacific," replied Tom. ”

“ If we hit a wreck—"
"Bless my looking glass!" cried Mr. Damon, "it may be the Pandora, Tom."
"That's too good to be true!" cried Ned. "Anyhow, let's get out and take a look."
Tom first made sure that the slight leak was not likely to increase, and then arrangements were made for himself, Ned, Koku, and some of the others to go outside in the diving suits. Mr. Damon wanted to be of the party, but Tom was afraid to permit him in that depth of water. Mr. Damon, in spite of his jollity, was not as young as he had been. ”