– Let’s wait a little – professor Thomson told.
Rub… Half of the fourth… Simpkins is absent everything. The captain hurried with withdrawal. “It is necessary to get out before twilight of a coastal strip with the big movement – he said – especially as fog approaches”.
Decided to sail away to four. The siren is heart-breaking cried as a wounded fantastic giant cat… and the ship sailed away. From the coast waved hats and scarfs.
Suddenly several people standing at the edge of pier jumped aside aside, and on their place there was Simpkins who got wet, disheveled with the hat which got off on a nape. He violently shouted, waving hands.
The captain “Defiant” swore and ordered to reverse. And Simpkins already fell down in the boat and floated to the ship, without ceasing to wave a hand.
– Thousand apologies! – he shouted, climbing a ladder. – Awfully hurried… An unforeseen delay … – And it appeared on the deck.
– What is with you? – poluispuganno, полунасмешливо asked Vivian, inspecting Simpkins.
His nose swelled, on cheekbones bruises were seen.
– Anything… small boxing with the old acquaintance, Cross-eyed Jim… Such unexpected meeting! Escaped, the villain; his happiness! If I did not hurry … – And, calming myself, he added: – Nothing, will leave. It is a small game… I will make a lotion, and everything will pass.
Fog tightened coast. The ship went slowly. From time to time the siren shouted.
– Damp, we go down – Viviana told and went down with the husband in biological laboratory. There already professor Thomson and two assistants – Tamm and Müller worked.
The laboratory represented itself quite capacious room with a big square window in a wall and two hexagonal windows in a ceiling. The left side was taken by photographic laboratory, right – chemical. Over wide tables with boxes, as in drugstores, regiments with books. On empty seats of walls various jails, harpoons, regiments and shelves with bubbles and medicines are strengthened. Each span of the area is used. Even on a ceiling oval boxes what are used by naturalists, and spring scales are attached. In the middle of laboratory there was a huge table. Here microscopes, accessories to preparation, stuffing of effigies and preparation of herbariums were located: scalpels, scissors, tweezers, press. Several stools with the rotating seats were strengthened so that could move along a table. Thomson slowly went on laboratory, slowly rearranged banks, humming in a low tone, and work was argued in his hands.
Evening passed enough drearily. And at night the siren did not allow to sleep. By the morning the siren calmed down, and Viviana fell asleep a sound, healthy sleep.
Morning came solar, clear. Had coffee on the deck, under an awning. The ocean sighed dark blue waves exactly and rhythmically, fresh sea air poured in cheerfulness; and, having forgotten the nightmares and doubts, Viviana told:
– As it is good, Redzhinald that we went to this travel!
– Still – Simpkins who already removed bandages responded for it – we will be able to open Sleyton’s riddle.
– And riddles of the Sargasso Sea – professor Thomson thoughtfully told. – Tamm, prepare a drag. It is necessary to poissledo-vat a bottom.
While Tamm equipped a drag to descent, Thomson continued:
– The sea is a multystoried building. In each “floor” there live the inhabitants who do not rise in top and do not go down to lower “floors”.
– Well, it, we will put, not only in the sea – told Simpkins. – And on the earth the inhabitant of the cellar “is not accepted” in the dress circle…
– A small difference – Müller put in a ward, people from the cellar could live also in “dress circle” as you speak, and sea inhabitants… for them it would be death. If deep-water fish carelessly rises above the set limit, she will become torn there as the boiler when its walls do not maintain internal pressure explodes.
– Um… so sea inhabitants of “dress circle” can sleep peacefully, without being afraid of attack from below?
– In each “floor” there are predators.
Tamm lowered a drag – a rectangular iron frame with a bag from network. Stones were attached to a bag, for weight.
– On what depth to lower? – Tamm asked, unwinding a cable together with Müller.
– Meters on six hundred – Thomson answered.
All silently watched work.
– To decelerate! – Thomson told.
The captain made the order.
– Well, something to us was sent by destiny?
Two sailors came to the rescue of Müller and Tamm.
Hardly the drag appeared on a surface as Tamm and Müller at the same time screamed:
– Linofrina!
All with curiosity started considering a sea monster. All fish as though consisted of a huge mouth with big teeth, not less huge bag stomach and a tail. On a chin of this monster there was a branchy appendage (for a bait of fishes as Thomson explained), and on the top jaw – something like a trunk with a thickening in the middle.
– It is the shining body, so to speak, own electric lighting.
– And why to it lighting? – asked Simpkins.
– It lives in depth where the beam of the sun does not get.
– To live in an eternal gloom – too pleasure! Managed them to choose such unsuccessful apartment!
– Will even more surprise you if I tell that they test for each square centimeter of the surface weight in several honeycombs of kilograms. But they do not even notice it and, believe, feel perfectly.
– Look, look, sargassa! – Viviana exclaimed suddenly, running up to a handrail.
On the blue surface of the ocean the separate rounded kisteobrazny bushes painted in orange and golden and olive colors really were seen.
All were delighted to sargassa as though they met the old acquaintance.
Between August second and sixth the ship went already near Bermuda. On the third of August just separate bushes of seaweed floated. They were an oval form, but under easy whiff of the southern wind were extended in long strips. The Gatling burned from impatience rather to try the technical devices on continuous sargassa. At last continuous meadows of sargass appeared on the seventh of August. Now, on the contrary, the blue smooth surface of the ocean looked out islands among an olive carpet.,
– Here it, “the curtailed sea” as his ancient Greeks called – Thomson told.
The Gatling with nervousness watched how it will cope “Defiant” with this web of seaweed. But its nervousness was vain: the ship almost did not reduce speed. It cut sargassa, and they parted, baring the long dispersing blue films of water on both parties of the ship.
– Perhaps, your precautions were excessive – professor told. – Eventually, for modern vessels of a sargassa absolutely do not constitute such danger any more. And in general their “impassability” is exaggerated.
Having caught several seaweed, Thomson began to consider them. Viviana observed too.
– Here you see – he explained to her – white stalks? These are already died off. Sargassa, broken by wind and taken by a current in the Caribbean Sea, rush on the North. Five and a half months are required that they passed a way from Florida to the Azores. And during this time they not only keep life, but also ability of fructification. Some sargassa