I can't make out."

"I've been puzzling over that, too," replied Frank, "there's a lot
that's very mysterious about this whole thing. The Southern Cross is,
as you know, equipped with a submarine bell which should give warning
when she approaches shallow water. Why didn't it sound last night?"

"Because there must be deep water right up to this coast," was the
only explanation Harry could offer.

"That's just it," argued his brother. "But what is a coast doing here
at all. We are two hundred miles out in the South Atlantic, or rather,
we were last night."

"The charts don't show any land out there, do they?"

"Not so much as a pin point. Some of the deepest parts of the ocean
are encountered there."

"Then the ship must have been off her course."

"It seems impossible. She is in charge of experienced navigators. Her
compasses and other instruments are the most perfect of their kind."

"Maybe it is a dream after all, and we'll wake up and find ourselves
in our bunks," was all Harry could say.

Before Frank could find anything to reply to this extraordinary
suggestion he gave a sudden tense cry of: