The electric lead-line was shortened to the length of a few
fathoms, and even then it sometimes suddenly rang out its alarm.
After a time the bottom of the sea became visible through the
stout glass of a protected window near the bow, and a man was
placed there to report what he could see below them.

It had now become so light that in some parts of the vessel the
electric lamps were turned out. Fissures of considerable size
appeared in the ice above, and then, to the great excitement of
every one, the vessel slowly moved under a wide space of open
water; but the ice could be seen ahead, and she did not rise.
The bottom came no nearer, and the Dipsey moved cautiously on.
Nobody thought of eating; they did not talk much, but at every
one of the outlooks there were eager faces.

At last they saw nothing above them but floating fragments of
ice. Still they kept on, until they were plainly moving below
the surface of open water. Then Mr. Gibbs looked at Sammy.

"I think it is time to rise," said he; and Sammy passed the word
that the Dipsey was going up into the upper air.

When the little craft, so long submerged in the quiet depths of
the Arctic Sea, had risen until she rested on the surface of the
water, there was no general desire, as there had been when she
emerged into Lake Shiver, to rush upon the upper deck. Instead
of that, the occupants gathered together and looked at each other
in a hesitating way, as if they were afraid to go out and see
whether they were really in an open sea, or lying in some small
ice-locked body of water.