“Rather creepy, ain’t it?” hailed Grant, his voice not as steady as usual.

“Think you’re going to learn to like it?” demanded Benson.

“Well, I may get so I’ll think this sort of thing the greatest going,” drawled Andrews, “but I’m afraid a good, soft bed on land will always be a close second for me.”

“Wonder how far the bosses are going to run under water?” pondered Eph, sliding into the engine room and seating himself on the cushion opposite Andrews.

“Till they’ve tried the boat out all they want to under water, I guess,” ventured Jack.

“I’ll slip back, so I can pass any order that may come,” proposed Hal, who, truth to tell, felt an undefinable something that made him too restless to like the idea of sitting down.

As the “Pollard” continued to glide along, almost without perceptible motion at that depth, these members of the crew became somewhat accustomed to the feeling.  They began to have a new notion, though, that they would take it all much more easily after they had once seen proof of the new craft’s ability to rise.

“Say, I wonder if it would be too fresh of me to ask Mr. Farnum when he means to try the rising stunt?” wondered Eph, aloud.

Grant Andrews looked up with interest, then shook his head.

“Better not,” he advised.  “We knew what we were coming to, and took all the chances.  Now, we’d better keep quiet.  Any nervousness might bother Mr. Pollard or Mr. Farnum.”

“Well, she’s a dandy boat, anyway,” declared Eph, a bit jerkily.  “So far, she’s done everything she’s been told to.  So I reckon she can rise when the time comes.”

“Who’s below?” cried Mr. Farnum.

“Hastings, sir,” Hal answered.

“Tell the crew we’re going to run below the surface until the air becomes noticeably bad.  We want to test out the compressed-air devices for purifying the atmosphere.”

So Hal stepped forward with the message.

“Don’t you think the air begins to smell queer already?” demanded Eph, looking up.  “I’m willing to have some compressed air turned on right now.”

The others laughed, which was all they could do.  Jack Benson, of them all, probably, was getting most rapidly over the first bad touch of “submarine fright.”  He was now almost as well satisfied as he would have been on the porch of the little hotel at Dunhaven.  Only he was anxious to know just how the boat would behave when it became time to rise.  That was all.

“How would you feel if we were running along like this, bent on driving a torpedo against the hull of a big battleship?” questioned Eph.

“Curious,” Jack answered.

“What about?”

“Wondering if we were going to succeed in the job.”

“Put it another way,” laughed Grant Andrews, shortly.  “How would you feel about being aboard a battleship in wartime, and suspecting that a boat like this was nosing down in the water after you?”