all. Seeing this, the sawfishes soon abandoned the attempt and with
growls and roars of disappointment swam away and were quickly out of
sight.

Trot had been a wee bit frightened during the attack, but now she
laughed gleefully and told the queen that it seemed very nice to be
protected by fairy powers. The water grew a darker blue as they
descended into its depths, farther and farther away from the rays of
the sun. Trot was surprised to find she could see so plainly through
the high wall of water above her, but the sun was able to shoot its
beams straight down through the transparent sea, and they seemed to
penetrate to every nook and crevice of the rocky bottom.

In this deeper part of the ocean some of the fishes had a
phosphorescent light of their own, and these could be seen far ahead
as if they were lanterns. The explorers met a school of argonauts
going up to the surface for a sail, and the child watched these
strange creatures with much curiosity. The argonauts live in shells
in which they are able to hide in case of danger from prowling wolf
fishes, but otherwise they crawl out and carry their shells like
humps upon their backs. Then they spread their skinny sails above
them and sail away under water till they come to the surface, where
they float and let the currents of air carry them along the same as
the currents of water had done before. Trot thought the argonauts
comical little creatures, with their big eyes and sharp noses, and
to her they looked like a fleet of tiny ships.

It is said that men got their first idea of boats and of how to sail
them from watching these little argonauts.