The men in the control room stared at Bell with unbelieving eyes.

“I tell you part of the hull of the Southern Queen has been rolled over on top of us,” shouted Earl. “We’re trapped! We’re trapped!” His voice broke.

Tim felt sick. Down 185 feet under the surface of the water, there was no way of sending up news of their predicament and no one there even if they could send it up.

Commander Ford remained calm.

“Stay at your posts,” he ordered. “I’ll go forward and see what can be learned.”

Tim followed him. The Commander took over the telephone and spoke to the divers, sitting inside their compartment.

“What can you make out?” he asked Charlie Gill.

The reply was not encouraging.

“Part of the upperstructure of the Southern Queen was toppled over on us when that last earth shock came,” reported Gill. “I’m going outside and see what can be done.”

The doors of the diving compartment clicked open and the chief diver disappeared.

Long minutes dragged by. There was no word from the man on whom they were pinning so much of their hopes.

Finally Charlie Gill staggered back into view. Tim knew from the sag of his shoulders that the mission had been useless.

Again the doors of the diving compartment were shut and he heard Gill’s voice coming over the wire into the receivers on Commander Ford’s head.

“We’re caught tight,” reported the diver. “There doesn’t seem to be a chance to escape.”

Tim looked down at the rusty treasure chests, piled in such a haphazard fashion on the floor of the outer diving compartment. All thought of the treasure had left their minds now. The one desire was to get back to the surface.

The S-18 quivered occasionally as new earth shocks rocked the bottom of the ocean.

Commander Ford put down the headset and turned back toward the control room.

“We’ll try it again,” he said.

The electrics hummed, the propellers threshing first one way and then another, but there was no upward movement of the submarine.

The water was blown from the diving compartment and Gill and Graham struggled out of their diving suits.

Commander Ford called them to one side, and they conversed at length. Tim caught only snatches of the conversation, but it was enough to tell him that their situation was almost hopeless. Already the air inside the S-18 seemed heavy and his head ached miserably.

“How long can we last?” he asked Pat, who was standing by in the control room.

The chief officer shrugged.

“Let’s not think about that.”

The motors were shut off and the only sound was the faint humming of the ventilating fans as they forced a current of air from one compartment to another.

The crew, gathered in little groups, conversed in whispers. Joe Gartner, the gunner, battered open the top of one of the treasure chests and neat rows of gold bars were revealed. There was only a murmur of enthusiasm. Any man aboard would have traded a safe trip back to the surface for his share of the gold.

Commander Ford decided upon a desperate plane of action. A special bomb with a time fuse was rigged and Charlie Gill donned his diving suit again and went outside. They saw him working his way along the hull of the Southern Queen. Somewhere out there he would plant the bomb in the hope that the explosion would loosen the wreckage and allow the S-18 to shoot toward the surface.

Fifteen minutes later he was back. In five more minutes the bomb would go off. Tim literally counted every second. The crew waited at their posts and the motors were ready to push the S-18 toward the surface if they broke free.

The S-18 shook slightly. The propellers threshed madly, but there was no upward movement.

This time Russ Graham went outside. When he came back he shook his head.

“Explosive won’t budge the wreckage,” he said. “It would take a bucket of nitro at this depth and we haven’t any nitro.”

Despair lined the face of every man who heard those words. Most of them were submarine men, and they knew what was ahead—bad air, headaches, dimming lights, then darkness for the S-18 and for them.

“We might as well save the electricity,” said Commander Ford. Lights were turned off until only one bulb gleamed in each compartment.

Some of the men got together a meal. Tim didn’t feel like eating. Still true to the code of reporters, he sat down and with pencil and paper wrote the story of the last dive of the S-18. For an hour he wrote. Time meant nothing to the men now. The end would come when the light faded and the air gave out.

Tim’s head pounded to the throbbing of the blood through his body. A few of the men rolled into their blankets, trying to sleep. The treasure chests were forgotten.

The hours passed and Tim wrote slowly, recording his impressions.

The storage batteries had been drained of their reserve by the heavy pulls of the motors in trying to free the submarine and now only two lights were on, one in the control room, the other in the crew’s quarters.

It was hard to breath. The air was thick and foul. A thin stream of water was spurting into the engine room where a seam had opened under the pressure and the weight of the wreckage above it. Tim could hear the water splashing on the floor.

The light was dimmer, only a faint glow now. Then it was gone. Writing was a thing of the past, but in his hands he held the record of their tragedy. Perhaps someday the S-18 would be found and their story known.

Tim fumbled for his blankets. The air was cold. He laid down on the bunk. Up ahead was the steady splashing of the water. Back of him a man was quietly praying.

Tim closed his eyes. His head was splitting. Perhaps sleep would bring peace.

There was no sound in the S-18 except the low breathing of men who were saving every precious breath and the sound of the water coming in through the opened seam.

“When the water reaches the batteries there’ll be chlorine,” someone muttered.

“Let’s hope it reaches them soon,” another voice replied. “This waiting is what hurts.”

Tim was drowsy, his mind a blank. The end was near for all of them. Another half hour, not much longer.

An occasional earth tremor could be felt, but they were less distinct.

Tim was on the verge of unconsciousness when the S-18 rocked sharply as though a giant hand had grasped the conning tower and was shaking the big undersea craft in a playful manner. There was the faint sound of scraping metal, followed by another shock which threw men from their bunks.

Water was cascading in upon them. Screams filled the air.

“We’ve broken in two,” was one desperate cry.

Tim struggled to get to his feet. Water swished about his feet and someone knocked him down. Pat was shouting wildly.

“Shut up!” he cried. “Try and get to your stations. We’re moving!”

Men paused, dazed by the words. Gradually the meaning penetrated their fagged brains and through the darkness they hunted for their places.

Pat was right. Without power of its own, the S-18 was moving. Slowly at first, then with an upward rush that tumbled them about like jack-straws. The slim nose burst through the water and rose above the surface.

Commander Ford, who had remained in the control room, crawled up the ladder and opened the main hatch. A breath of fresh, sweet air, swept down into grateful faces. One by one the men crawled out on the deck.

It was the dawn of the second day. They had been saved from death below the surface, saved by an earthquake which had shifted the wreckage of the Southern Queen off the hull of the S-18.

Tim looked toward the Isle of the Singing Trees. The seaplane was riding safely just off the beach. It was less than 48 hours since they had gone below but he had lived a lifetime in those desperate hours of darkness and despair.

For half an hour they relaxed, basking in the sunshine of the early morning. Then they set about making the S-18 ready for the long cruise back to New York.

Tim, remembering the story he had written while they were on the bottom, plunged below. Part of the paper was wet, but Ike Green decided he could read it and he sat down at the radio to transmit it to the New York Journal and the Atkinson News.

“I’m sending a story on the recovery of the treasure,” Tim said to Commander Ford. “How much shall I say the gold totals?”

“It will exceed two million dollars,” smiled the Commander, “which means a tidy sum for every member of the crew.”

“I wouldn’t go through that experience again for a whole million,” replied Tim.

“Neither would I,” agreed the Commander. “It was little short of a miracle that saved us from death.”

Out of the air crackled a message that afternoon. It was from George Carson, back in Atkinson.

“Your story is the best of the year,” radioed the managing editor of the News. “Congratulations on a fine piece of writing, but don’t take any more chances by going down in a submarine.”

Tim slipped the message in a pocket. It had been a great adventure, more thrilling by far than he had ever dared to dream, but he would be glad when the S-18 nosed its way back into New York harbor.