Through the sideways motion we were now on the edge of the seaweed forest whose leaves grew 70 m up into the sunlight. These seaweed plants were attached to the rocks with root-like plates on which leaves grew which were carried by gas bubbles.
I was intending to make a few drawings of this underwater forest. As I reached for my note-book, my view fell on the water below us, and there I saw a long blue-black shadow gliding out on its way in the seaweed thicket. Margaret had seen the movement as well and gripped my arm.
“What is it?”
We both tried in the half light to see what sort of being it was that had appeared. Finally I saw a form of a four meter long tiger-shark.
A chill ran down my spine for I had heard enough stories about this wolf of the seas and even written one for myself.
“It is a tiger-shark,” I answered Margaret.
At the same moment the shark turned as if it had heard me diagonally above and swam directly to our viewing window.
Margaret screamed as she saw the demonic looking animal approach.
The tiger shark glid over our diving sphere and we were able to have a close look at the horrid killing rows of teeth directly in front of the window.
The shark crossed the window two more times, we had quite a long time a look into the uncannily lively and death promising eyes and then the animal disappeared in the blue-violet darkness of the seaweed.
My hands trembled and Margaret was still holding tightly to my arm. Now she let me go and laughed:
“We are certainly scaredy-cats. But I think we ought to continue a bit further to investigate and not turn tail and return at once to the Mayflower.”
I agreed with her. I too had no intention to make a bad appearance in front of our certainly more fearful predecessors, and so I boldly gave the signal, that the diving sphere should continue its descent.
Between the seaweed we could see the rock-formations upon which ocean animals were perched quite like plants, which I have written about so much. I took a special note of a collection of sea-anemones which looked like a large dahlia-blossom – but in reality are meat-eating animals.
Till now we had not switched on the external light so that all forms appeared in blue and blue-violet colors. Now I turned on the magnesium-light as I wished to make visible for Margaret and of course also for myself the magnificence of color of the undersea life.
We were astonished! The sea-anemones showed their glowing red and not far from them was a colony of sea-sheaths in blue-white colors with red markings. A number of sea urchins glowed in their green and others in their purple costumes.
In the meantime we had reached about 100 m and I gave the signal to stop. We wanted to have the time to observe longer all those colors and forms and swimming by fish and I began enthusiastically to draw and take notes. Margaret gave me helpful hints, as she had quite a discerning eye and could often take note of the quickly disappearing fish that swam by.
We must have spent about half an hour in that fashion before a surprising signal was sent by the Mayflower II to the diving sphere. In conjunction with my work as a writer I had learned Morse code so that our communications were not limited to simple signals.
“What’s going on?” Margaret asked and I deciphered the clattering Morse signals that were coming through the command line.
“We’re having problems with the winches and cannot, at this moment, raise the diving sphere.”
Suddenly we were prisoners of the sea!
I signalled back and asked how long the repairs would take.
“Two hours,” we were told.
We weren’t exactly put at ease but we nevertheless had the impression that we were not in imminent danger.
“Continue your sketches,” said Margaret. “It’s calming and more productive than brooding.”
She was right, naturally, and I followed her advice.
An ever-changing variety of fish glided through the wide beam of light; they often swam in groups or formations and sometimes presented themselves as a single species. The play of their colors and forms and their entire way of moving was a constant spectacle. Although the diving sphere was now hanging motionless on the cables and we could not change our position, we had a good view of the over-grown rock landscape and the area around it.
It was gradually growing darker, however, and finally the light from our lamp was the only illumination.
Just at that moment, as our hearts were about to be overtaken by a clammy feeling of fear, a thickly pressed together school of fish were swimming in our beam.
Margaret and me were staring somewhat mindlessly at the suddenly bright scene as something powerful suddenly shot out of the seaweed – it was a sawfish!
He rammed his way into the fish formation in front of us and with lightning speed tore apart a few fish with his saw-formed snout. The remains sunk to the ocean floor where the sawfish dined upon them.
Margaret and me were deeply shocked and noticed how exhausted we were.
I put my arm around Margaret, for we had both become cold. We prayed silently as the sawfish shot out again from below us and swam over the diving sphere; it must have gotten caught in the cables and wires because we suddenly were being swung around and the tail fin of the giant animal whipped against the glass of our window.
We grabbed onto the grips. My writing materials flew to the ground and the sphere was so tossed that we swung back and forth like a huge pendulum.
The movements were bringing us dangerously close to the rock formations. The thickly-grown seaweed forest seemed to prevent the worst by acting as a polstering, pinched between the diving sphere and the rock.
After one or two minutes of terror the sawfish had freed itself from its predicament and had disappeared. The movements of the diving sphere calmed down again, the wildly stirred-up seaweed smoothed out and opened the view through the viewing window.
We had been thrown all around the sphere so we got back into our positions.
My first concern was our air supply.
Thank God! I could still hear the soft hiss.
I then tried to make contact with the Mayflower. I signalled again and again but received no answer. The sawfish must have snapped the cable in his thrashing!
I fell back onto the seat cushion. I was stunned and a numbness came over me. Margaret, whom I had not told anything, leaned over to me and looked at me lovingly with her pale face. She had obviously understood the new terrible news without words. She softly caressed my cheek and I felt a stream of peace emanating from her that helped me to reorder my confused thoughts.
“Douglas, whatever awaits us let us not despair but rather put our lives in God’s hands. Our souls are always free and at peace.”
My eyes were full of tears and I was afraid to die and afraid of all the tortures that were yet to come.
She seemed to read my thoughts and said:
“There is always hope, Douglas. Think about God. Our little wills and our actions are now incapable, but not the power of His mercy. What ever happens it won’t take too long and won’t matter in the Glory that awaits us.”
I breathed deeply.
“I’m