and turned and turned! With my last remaining strength I bolted the door shut!
The sphere had leaned over more and more and then suddenly fell into the sea with a hefty jolt. I was still hanging on the door’s locking wheel, my hands like lock wrenches. In front of the glass was night and then grey-white tumult. The sphere was obviously still attached to the crane and was being plunged again and again into the water. Violent, thundering impacts shook the sphere as it smacked against the hull of the ship!
The Mayflower II must have been caught in a hurricane.
Then I noticed in horror that the sphere was remaining under water for longer periods! The cables seemed to have snapped loose! I emerged once more from the water – then a thundering hit and the sphere tumbled over unimpeded into the sea. It was dark around me at once and the pale flashes quickly faded and with a last thought about Margaret I lost consciousness.
At some point I awoke again. I had painful contusions that convinced me that I was not yet merged with eternity.
I was surrounded by complete darkness. The air was thick and suffocating. The crane’s cables and all the other connections were obviously broken and I was sitting on the bottom of the Sargasso Sea. The air line was twisted through the impacts that water couldn’t come through – so I had a little time to suffocate rather than drown!
Now, the end being so unavoidable, I was overcome with a strange sense of peace and I was happy that Margaret had been saved.
The air grew steadily worse and I began to cough. I had lost all time orientation and didn’t know if seconds or hours had passed when the sphere began to sway and then started to roll!
I tried to grab hold of something in the darkness and, by a miracle, found a hand grip. Pressed up against the polstered wall I could get along with the rolling movement more or less though I didn’t know how long it would last.
The sphere was moving faster and faster and didn’t seem to be bouncing along the ocean surface anymore. The rolling became more of a lurching.
I suspected that the sphere was caught in an undersea current and a shimmer of hope appeared in my heart.
I had no idea whether the journey was headed for the depth’s of the Atlantic, where the sphere would be crushed by the pressure or whether I was rolling over a flat surface. I just wanted to remain conscious.
Again and again my senses threatened to give out but I managed not to let go off the grips.
Then the sphere’s speed seemed to increase, the twisting became more intense and the sphere was about to go into a roll again as a crunching sound came from the steel walls and the sphere suddenly came to a stop!
I was thrown to the side and fell unconscious onto the seats.
My fainting spell must not have lasted long as the air quality had not decreased substantially.
I opened my eyes.
A beam of light from a diagonal above me was shining in my face through the viewing glass!
I was so delirious that I thought I was in a dream and I looked at the light as if it were a spectacle. Then I came completely back into consciousness and pulled myself up with a pounding heart: a beam of light!
I tried to understand the situation as best I could: The sphere was sitting still and the viewing glass was pointed upwards at a diagonal. I carefully observed the beam of light. It was coming through an irregular opening some 10 meters above the sphere and little by little I could make out more details through my overtaxed eyes.
Yes, it was definitely a cave or a grotto in which the sphere had landed! An underwater current must have drawn me in and so I must have been near the surface.
I could clearly make out rock walls and realized to my great surprise that the sphere was no longer under water!
A new strength from somewhere went through my battered body and I tried to open the door. Thank God it was not impeded and a few moments later I could throw it open.
I leaned out of the sphere. Fresh air filled my plagued lungs!
Now I could see that I was in a sort of rock dome which led into underwater caves. In a flash I saw that the rock walls were wet. So the sphere had been caught in the tide and had been pressed up into this dome through one of the undersea caves. Luckily it got caught here between several stones. Then the tide went out.
As I had been unconscious I had no idea when the water would rise again and fill the dome.
My only hope was the opening through which the beam of light had come.
I wasted no time and climbed over stones and slipping seaweed to the rock face in front of me. I could there see that it was quite rough and naggy. I was relieved, climbing to the opening was possible! But who could say that the opening wouldn‘t be flooded as well? And what would await me up there?
“Pointless thoughts,” I said to myself and put them aside.
I wanted, in any case, to rescue the emergency supplies from the diving sphere, so I rushed back.
Professor Pickering had stored them in two sea chests. Using a rope that was stowed with the chests, I tied them together so that I could carry them like a backpack.
I stumbled over the stones to the rock face, climbed up a few meters, then pulled up both chests with the rope.
The opening came closer and closer. Three more meters. Two meters. Just a few more steps and I would be there. In that moment my right foot slipped on the slimy rocks! I had to drop the rope with the two chests in order to grab hold of the rock face. They fell a few meters and landed on a jutting rock with a crack.
Thank God they had survived the fall!
The rope had slipped away so that I had to try to climb down to the two chests or decide to give them up. Although I was right in front of the opening I chose to climb down again to rescue the sea chests.
I was carefully climbing down testing each hold with my feet when I realized that the dome was beginning to fill with water.
Cold sweat appeared on my forehead.
I tenaciously set one foot in front of the other.
The diving sphere was already halfway under water and gurgeling water flooded through the open door into the interior.
I had reached the chests. I carefully laid down on my stomach and tried to grasp the end of the rope which was hanging over the edge of the jut in the rock face.
The diving sphere below me began to sway and slid out of its position between the rocks.
The rope slipped twice out of my hand, but then I got a good grip and began to climb again.
The water rose faster and faster. The diving sphere was completely submerged and as I took a moment’s break to catch my breath I watched as the tide rolled it into one of the caves where it disappeared.
I again gathered all my strength and reached the edge of the opening with one hand. I used the other hand to pull up the chests.
I
