That's what's the matter! Air! Provisions, water--abundance! But
air--oh! that's their weak point! Quick, Captain, quick--They're
throwing the reel--I must see her rate!" So saying, he hurried off to
the stern, followed by General Morgan. Chief Engineer Murphy and the
Captain of the _Susquehanna_ were thus left for awhile together.
These two men had a long talk on the object of their journey and the
likelihood of anything satisfactory being accomplished. The man of the
sea candidly acknowledged his apprehensions. He had done everything in
his power towards collecting suitable machinery for fishing up the
Projectile, but he had done it all, he said, more as a matter of duty
than because he believed that any good could result from it; in fact, he
never expected to see the bold adventurers again either living or dead.
Murphy, who well understood not only what machinery was capable of
effecting, but also what it would surely fail in, at first expressed the
greatest confidence in the prosperous issue of the undertaking. But when
he learned, as he now did for the first time, that the ocean bed on
which the Projectile was lying could be hardly less than 20,000 feet
below the surface, he assumed a countenance as grave as the Captain's,
and at once confessed that, unless their usual luck stood by them, his
poor friends had not the slightest possible chance of ever being fished
up from the depths of the Pacific.
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