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.
The conversation maintained among the officers and the others on board the _Susquehanna_, was pretty much of the same nature.

It is almost needless to say that all heads--except Belfast's, whose scientific mind rejected the Projectile theory with the most serene contempt--were filled with the same idea, all hearts throbbed with the same emotion.
Wouldn't it be glorious to fish them up alive and well?
What were they doing just now?
Doing?
_Doing!_ Their bodies most probably were lying in a shapeless pile on the floor of the Projectile, like a heap of clothes, the uppermost man being the last smothered; or perhaps floating about in the water inside the Projectile, like dead gold fish in an aquarium; or perhaps burned to a cinder, like papers in a "champion" safe after a great fire; or, who knows?
perhaps at that very moment the poor fellows were making their last and almost superhuman struggles to burst their watery prison and ascend once more into the cheerful regions of light and air! Alas! How vain must such puny efforts prove! Plunged into ocean depths of three or four miles beneath the surface, subjected to an inconceivable pressure of millions and millions of tons of sea water, their metallic shroud was utterly unassailable from within, and utterly unapproachable from without! Early on the morning of December 29th, the Captain calculating from his log that they must now be very near the spot where they had witnessed the extraordinary phenomenon, the _Susquehanna_ hove to.

Having to wait till noon to find his exact position, he ordered the steamer to take a short circular course of a few hours' duration, in hope of sighting the buoy.

But though at least a hundred telescopes scanned the calm ocean breast for many miles in all directions, it was nowhere to be seen.
Precisely at noon, aided by his officers and in the presence of Marston, Belfast, and the Gun Club Committee, the Captain took his observations.

After a moment or two of the most profound interest, it was a great gratification to all to learn that the _Susquehanna_ was on the right parallel, and only about 15 miles west of the precise spot where the Projectile had disappeared beneath the waves.