She put her hand on my shoulder.
“Mine too.”
Then she smiled.
“The shark has already gobbled them up.”
I managed to force a little smile and reached behind the seats where a few blankets were stowed. We wrapped ourselves up and sat looking out the viewing glass.
I don’t know how long we sat like that in silence, but I suddenly had the impression that our magnesium lamp was flickering. I asked Margaret:
“Did you see that flickering as well?”
Margaret had slumbered off but woke up and opened her eyes when she heard my question.
“It just seemed as though our lamp were flickering,” I said and we both looked carefully at the beam of light that pierced into the dark sea from our diving sphere.
Then we both suddenly saw the light grow stronger!
“That is not flickering,” I said, “It’s more like another light, as if light were coming from somewhere else.”
We observed the strange phenomenon several times. It seemed to grow more frequent. Finally we decided to turn off the diving sphere’s lamp.
For a moment we found ourselves in complete darkness and then we saw that flickering light shining down on us from above.
“It must be a storm!” I exclaimed, taken aback.
The flickering lights grew stronger und we could feel the diving sphere begin to sway and bob up and down.
Apparently the Mayflower II had been surprised by a lightning storm!
The pale flashes of light grew stronger and stronger and the movements of the diving sphere were becoming more and more threatening. The seaweed forest in front of us began again its bizare dance, illuminated again and again by the irregular flashes of light, which looked like a living vision of a man in fever delirium.
Then there was a sudden jolt und it seemed as if the diving sphere was moving upwards!
I turned the magnesium light back on and we were in fact on our way back to the surface!
The closer we came to the surface, the brighter the lightning flashes became and the rougher the sea.
We held tight on the hand grips. Captain Thunderbold had the winches at full speed and we approached the surface relatively rapidly.
Finally the sphere resurfaced. Gray, mountainous waves surged in front of our viewing glass and streams of rain pierced the ray of light from our lamp. Lightning flashed and the sphere swung about more intensely than it had under the water.
We could barely feel the ship heaving the sphere over the deck as we were in constant motion. I suddenly saw a bit of the deck through the viewing window and knew we must be back on board. I rushed to the door, undid the bolt and turned back the locking mechanism as fast as I could. Then I pushed the door open and tried to hold on somehow with my shoulder.
“Margaret, come quickly,” I yelled and pulled her past me.
Helping hands took her and she disappeared from my field of vision.
Before I had a chance to consider the next step, the ship was hit hard by a wave and I was thrown back into the sphere and the door swung shut; then the ship keeled in the other direction. Through the viewing glass I saw gray-white mist, illuminated by the lightning, coming closer and closer and I leaped to the door instinctively and turned and turned! With my last remaining strength I bolted the door shut!
The sphere had leaned over more and more and then suddenly fell into the sea with a hefty jolt. I was still hanging on the door’s locking wheel, my hands like lock wrenches. In front of the glass was night and then grey-white tumult. The sphere was obviously still attached to the crane and was being plunged again and again into the water. Violent, thundering impacts shook the sphere as it smacked against the hull of the ship!
The Mayflower II must have been caught in a hurricane.
Then I noticed in horror that the sphere was remaining under water for longer periods! The cables seemed to have snapped loose! I emerged once more from the water – then a thundering hit and the sphere tumbled over unimpeded into the sea. It was dark around me at once and the pale flashes quickly faded and with a last thought about Margaret I lost consciousness.
At some point I awoke again. I had painful contusions that convinced me that I was not yet merged with eternity.
I was surrounded by complete darkness. The air was thick and suffocating. The crane’s cables and all the other connections were obviously broken and I was sitting on the bottom of the Sargasso Sea. The air line was twisted through the impacts that water couldn’t come through – so I had a little time to suffocate rather than drown!
Now, the end being so unavoidable, I was overcome with a strange sense of peace and I was happy that Margaret had been saved.
The air grew steadily worse and I began to cough. I had lost all time orientation and didn’t know if seconds or hours had passed when the sphere began to sway and then started to roll!
I tried to grab hold of something in the darkness and, by a miracle, found a hand grip. Pressed up against the polstered wall I could get along with the rolling movement more or less though I didn’t know how long it would last.
The sphere was moving faster and faster and didn’t seem to be bouncing along the ocean surface anymore. The rolling became more of a lurching.
I suspected that the sphere was caught in an undersea current and a shimmer of hope appeared in my heart.
I had no idea whether the journey was headed for the depth’s of the Atlantic, where the sphere would be crushed by the pressure or whether I was rolling over a flat surface. I just wanted to remain conscious.
Again and again my senses threatened to give out but I managed not to let go off the grips.
Then the sphere’s speed seemed to increase, the twisting became more intense and the sphere was about to go into a roll again as a crunching sound came from the steel walls and the sphere suddenly came to a stop!
I was thrown to the side and fell unconscious onto the seats.
My fainting spell must not have lasted long as the air quality had not decreased substantially.
I opened my eyes.
A beam of light from a diagonal above me was shining in my face through the viewing glass!
I was so delirious that I thought I was in a dream and I looked at the light as if it were a spectacle. Then I came completely back into consciousness and pulled myself up with a pounding heart: a beam of light!
I tried to understand the situation as best I could: The sphere was sitting still and the viewing glass was pointed upwards at a diagonal. I carefully observed the beam of light. It was coming through an irregular opening some 10 meters above the sphere and little by little I could make out more details through my overtaxed eyes.
Yes, it was definitely a cave or a grotto in which the sphere had landed! An underwater current must have drawn me in and so I must have been near the surface.
I could clearly make out rock walls and realized to my great surprise that the sphere was no longer under water!
A new strength from somewhere went through my battered body and I tried to open the door. Thank God it was not impeded and a few moments later I could throw it open.
I leaned out of the sphere. Fresh air filled my plagued lungs!
Now I could see that I was in a sort of rock dome which led into underwater caves. In a flash I saw that the rock walls were wet. So the sphere had been caught in the tide and had been pressed up into this dome through one of the undersea caves. Luckily it got caught here between several stones. Then the