Colin wakened early the following morning and got up promptly, planning to show his alertness, but when he came downstairs and sauntered out between the oleander bushes toward the water he heard a hail and found that his chief was already up and was busy unpacking some large boxes which had been delivered the night before. The boy hurried to help him.

“What are these, Mr. Collier?” he asked, as some large square boxes with a window in the bottom came into view.

“These are water glasses,” the scientist answered, “not the kind that is used by tourists, but some I have had made specially lenses with reflecting mirrors; with them the bottom of the sea ought to show up clearly. As you notice, they are long enough to be usable from the deck of a fair-sized sailing boat. It’s a shame only to half-see things as beautiful as the sea-gardens. When a thing’s worth while, it is so much worth while.”

“I thought you would probably have to dive,” Colin said, “in order to see the submarine gardens thoroughly.”

The curator shook his head.

“You’ll find,” he said, “that we can see almost as well with these as though you and I were a couple of angel fish, swimming in and out of the grottoes of the coral. The water as you noticed when we were coming into the harbor is as clear as crystal. There’s nothing in coral sand to make it cloudy or muddy.”

“Are we going out this morning?” the boy queried eagerly, as he helped in the unpacking of the various instruments that the museum expert had brought.

“The boat is to be here at half-past eight,” was the reply, “and we’re going to find the most beautiful spot that there is in the submarine Garden of Eden. Our darky boatman, ‘Early Bird,’ they call him, says he knows a place quite far out on the reef where there are wonderful groves and parterres unspoiled by tourists because they lie so distant that it is not worth while for the excursion boats to make the trip.”

“I don’t quite see,” said Colin, “how the visit of tourists floating over a stretch of sea could harm the seaweeds and the coral growing on the bottom.”

“But it does, because a number of the glass-bottomed boats carry a diver who goes down and breaks off specimens of coral at the tourists’ request, selling them for a good sum. But the gardens to which we are going, I understand, are entirely out of the beaten track and are very much finer besides. Here is ‘Early Bird’ now.”

As he spoke, a white sailboat with a large spread of sail came skimming into the little bay, heading for the private wharf of the hotel at a rapid clip. Colin held his breath as the craft came rushing in, for the inlet was not much wider than twice the length of the boat and it seemed certain that the vessel would crash full upon the rocks not twenty feet beyond the wharf. But at the very last second the tiller was put over, the sail jibed, and as gently as though she had crept up in a calm, the Early Bird glided up beside the wharf, her bowsprit narrowly missing the bushes on the bank as she turned.

“You sure can handle a boat!” cried Colin admiringly.

The owner of the vessel, a young colored man, of good address and with a clever face, showed his white teeth in a gratified smile as he replied:

“Yas, sah, Ah’ve sailed a boat roun’ the harbor quite a good deal.”

“It looked that time as though you were going to be smashed up, sure.”

“Ah nevah even scraped the paint of a boat in ten yeahs o’ sailin’, sah,” the colored boatman answered, “an’ thar’s lots o’ shoals, too.”

“It looks as if she were resting on the bottom now!” the boy said.

“No, sah,” was the confident reply, “the tide’s full in an’ Ah knows this whahf right well. Thar’s two feet of wateh under her, right now.”

Early Bird for both boatman and boat answered to the same name deftly took aboard the glasses and other special material that had been prepared, not forgetting a large lunch basket that had been sent down from the hotel, and then he pushed off into the clear and shining water. The early morning breeze laid the little craft over on her side but she had a good pair of heels and in a few minutes the party was well on its way across Grassy Bay.

“Where are we going?” asked Colin.

Early Bird pointed beyond a group of small islands to where there seemed to be a depression in the land.

“Thar’s a channel, sah,” he said, “right in between those two islands. Thar’s a swing bridge across, but the keepeh is always on the lookout and we can go right through.”

A half hour’s sail brought them to the gap between the islands. Though the bridge was shut Early Bird steered confidently straight for the center, and it swung just in time, the boat shooting by with undiminished speed and rounding a point to the open water beyond. Before them stretched an unbroken vista of ocean.

“The next land south of you, Colin,” remarked the curator, “is Antarctica.”

Colin thought for a moment, then said in a surprised voice:

“Why, yes. Bermuda is an isolated point, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought of that before. Nearly all islands are in chains, but this little bit of a place is set off all by itself. I wonder why that is?”

“Bermuda is the top of a submarine mountain,” was the reply, “perhaps part of the lost Atlantis who knows? This stupendous peak rises almost fifteen thousand feet sheer from the ocean bed and its rugged top forms the basis of the islands. Think what a magnificent sight it would be if we could see its whole height rising from the darkness of the ocean deep.”

“But I thought Bermuda was a coral island!”

“The coral polyp has got to grow on something, hasn’t it?” the scientist reminded him. “Don’t forget that the little creatures can’t live in deep water. And, you see, Bermuda has gradually been sinking, the coral builders keeping pace with the subsidence, so that although the island is only two miles across at the widest point the reefs are ten miles wide.”

“It really is coral, then?”

“As much as any island is. The base of any coral island is limestone, being made of the skeletons of coral polypi which have been broken and crushed by wind and weather and beaten into stone. Just as chalk is made of thousands of tiny shells, so coral limestone is made of myriads of coral skeletons.”

“Why, that’s like sandstone,” cried Colin, in a disappointed tone. “I had an idea that coral was a sort of insect that lived in a shell and that colonies of these grew up from the bottom of the water like trees and when they died millions of them they left the shells and these stone forests grew up and up until they reached the top of the water and then soil was formed and that was how coral islands began.”

“I’m not surprised at your thinking that,” his chief replied, “lots of people do. And though that theory is all wrong, still if it has given folks an idea of the beauty and wonder of the world, there’s no great harm done. Plenty of people still talk about the coral ‘insect.’ It never occurs to them to call an anemone an ‘insect,’ but they don’t know that the coral polyp is more like an anemone than anything else.”

“But an anemone is a soft flabby thing that waves a lot of jelly-like fingers about in the water.”

“So does coral,” was the reply, “and it eats and lives just in the same way, only that the coral polyp has a stony skeleton and most of the sea anémones have not. But every different one has some sort of a story to tell and I believe they get joy out of life just as we do. Else why should some of these forms be so beautiful? You note them closely when we pass over some of the reefs, and I should judge we are coming to them now.”

Certainly if the coloration was any clue, the boat was coming to the great sea-gardens. Above the white bottom the water shone a vivid emeraldine green, changing to sharply marked browns over the shoals, while beyond the inner reefs it varied from all shades of sapphire blue to radiant aquamarine. Nowhere was the water of the same color for a hundred yards together, while every ruffling of the surface, every slant of sunlight gave it a new hue. Colin was entranced and wished to see more closely, but the boat was going too swiftly to let down a water glass and he was forced to wait a few minutes.

“Ah b’lieve, sah,” said Early Bird presently, hauling in the sheet, “we might let the sail down heah. We’ll drift just about fast enough fo’ you to watch the bottom.”

Mr. Collier handed one of the water glasses to the boatman. It was formed like a deep square box with a glass window for a bottom, and a specially prepared crystal had been used.

“That’s an improvement on the old kind, Early Bird,” he said; “what do you think of it?”

The Bermudian darky looked through the glass critically.

“Yes, sah,” he said, “thar’s no compah’son ’tween the two. The bottom looks bettah through that glass than it does when yo’ down theh yo’self. Ah used to do a little diving at one time, but the reefs nevah showed up that cleah. It would be a big thing fo’ the boats that take tourists out if they could have glasses like that one there.”

“It would be, perhaps,” the scientist said, laughing, “but they could almost build a boat for what one of these would cost.”

“Isn’t that the most gorgeous thing you ever saw!” cried Colin, as he set his eye to the glass, which Early Bird handed him. “There’s no garden on land with such colors as that.”

“There are no flowers in the garden you’re looking at, remember,” his friend reminded him.

“Don’t need them,” said the boy. “Look at that tall purple plant waving to and fro. Isn’t that a sea-fan?”

“Yes,” his companion answered, “that’s a sea-fan, but it isn’t a plant. It’s a kind of coral.”

“Is it? I always thought it was a seaweed.”

“You’ll be calling a sponge a plant next. See those red lumps, near the bottom of that rock? Those are sponges.”

“Now there’s some real coral!” the boy cried.

“All coral is real coral. What you are looking at is probably a form of the stag’s horn variety,” the curator said, “and that does look more like the coral of commerce. But everything you are looking at, nearly, is coral. These great dome-like stones, do you see them?”

“The ones that look like the pictures of a brain?”

“Yes, those are called brain-stone or brain-coral. And those others, just the same shape only with little holes, instead of grooves, that’s star coral.”

“Then there seem to be some that look like a bouquet of flowers all stuck together.”

“That’s rose coral,” was the reply, “and those are the three forms you see more generally.”

“But where’s the pink and red coral? If it’s as easy to get at coral as this, I don’t see why people don’t come here and make a fortune.”

“Fortunes aren’t quite as easy to pick up as that. This coral has no market value; the variety that is used for jewelry comes mainly from Japan and from the Mediterranean, and the governments of the various countries keep it under constant watch.”

“That’s why. I see now. Oh!” exclaimed the boy as some fish swam under the glass suddenly. “Just look at those angel-fish. They seem twice as brilliant as the ones I saw in Devil’s Hole.”

“Of course,” the curator said, “you would expect them to look dull in dull surroundings. That is color protection. Here, everything is gaily colored and striped and streaked and dotted, so the fish are, too. That helps them to hide and be unnoticed. A plain-colored open sea fish could be easily seen.”

“Look, sah,” said Early Bird, turning to the boy, “Ah’ve got a little sailoh’s choice, Ah caught this morning; Ah’ll throw him in and yo’ can notice how plain yo’ can see him.”

He tossed the fish overboard. The silver scales shone and gleamed brilliantly in the transparent water but Colin had barely time to notice what a conspicuous object it was when in a swirl of water a score of small fish of all sorts surrounded the morsel. But the groupers followed hotfoot and the little fish fled. Then came retribution, for, from a crevice in a near-by rock, out shot the eel-like form of a green moray and disposed of one of the groupers in short order.

“Did I tell you about the moray?” Colin asked, and on receiving a reply in the negative, he recounted the story he had heard in Devil’s Hole. The boy rather feared that Early Bird might make light of it even if the museum curator did not, but the darky remarked that he thought it was a good thing to let morays alone and that he had heard the story from other sources before. In the meantime the leader of the expedition had found a section of the reef which appealed to him and at his request Early Bird put out a small kedge anchor, holding the boat fast. The wind had dropped a good deal as the morning wore on and now the little sailing boat rocked gently over the gorgeous gardens of the sea.

“You told me,” the museum official said, “that you were fond of drawing. Here’s a sketch block and some pastel crayons; see what you can do with them.”

Colin lifted his eyebrows in surprise, but he took the sketch block and pad, hooking his water glass to the side of the boat as directed. His companion took a large water glass of a different character. It was right-angled with a lens at the end. In the joint of the angle was a reflector which threw the image upon a mirror immediately under the eye-piece.

“What’s that for?” the boy asked.

“So that we can look at the reefs at their own level,” was the reply. “No matter how much you allow for refraction and foreshortening, you’ll find it almost impossible to get correct values by studying a reef from the top only. You know how queer a place looks in a picture that has been taken from an aeroplane?”

“Yes,” the boy answered.

“That’s what we’ve got to avoid here. We are looking down on the reefs just as an aviator looks down on a city. This glass, however, will give me the proper perspective. You see I have made it something like a telescope so that I can add segment after segment and watch conditions even in fairly deep water. Now I’ll show you how I’m going to manage it.”

He took the long L glass with which he was working and fastened it by little hooks to the direct overhead glass which Colin was using, and as he did so the boy noticed that the two glasses were so arranged that they focussed at the same point of the reef, only that one viewed it from above, the other from the side. A little device worked by a thumbscrew varied the angle in proportion to the depth.

“Now,” he was instructed, “draw in and color as well as you know how everything you see in the field of your glass. You’ve got all day to do it in, so there’s no need for hurry. Remember, I don’t want the color you think the sea-fans and other forms would be out of the water, but the color that they seem to you to be when looked at through the water.”

“But I don’t draw so awfully well, Mr. Collier,” said Colin.

“You don’t need to,” was the reply, “it’s the color that I want. There isn’t a tint known that you can’t find in those pastels and I want it as exact as you can get it. I’m going to do the same thing, you see, only from the side. The light will cause a good deal of difference, and I want to determine just how the shadows fall.”

The boy had never had such crayons to work with and he was naturally a good colorist. He became so absorbed that he was quite unaware of the passage of time and it was with something of a surprise that he heard the announcement of lunch. This was due to Early Bird, who, seeing that it was after noon, had unpacked the hamper and set out a good meal. Both artists dined heartily and Early Bird was not forgotten when the artists returned to their drawings. But although Colin worked as hard as he could, it was four o’clock before he felt that he had finished. The museum expert was also still at work when the sun began to fail to give a sufficiently direct light to pierce the water. Colin was eager to see his companion’s sketch, but this was denied him.

“No,” he was told. “We’re coming here to-morrow, and I want you to do what I was doing to-day, while I do the overhead view.”

“What’s that for, Mr. Collier?” queried Colin, again.

“No two people see color values just alike,” was the reply, “and while of course I don’t expect you to make a perfect picture, still if your coloring and mine agree, we are nearly sure to have exactly the right shade.”

“But if they don’t?”

“Then we have two color conceptions, and it is easy for a third person to say which looks the most real to him. Early Bird, for example, could tell which looked the best to him, although, of course, he could not describe the color.”

“Then we’re coming back here to-morrow?”

“If the wind is suitable, yes.”

Colin was simply aching with eagerness to see the other drawing but had to be content with the promise that he could see it as soon as he had done the duplicate, and not before, as he might be prejudiced thereby. Before going home that day they dropped as a marker a heavy lead disk about six inches across, painted white, to which was attached a buoy, so that they could find the identical place again; and the following morning, when they came out, the buoy was picked up without difficulty and the boat moored as before.

The second day on the reefs was an exact counterpart of the first, except that Colin found it much more difficult to work through the L glass. To look down at a picture which was reflected sidewise made the drawing of it quite tricky until he caught the knack. Also, shadows under the water did not behave the same way as above. But, as before, the entire day was given to it, and though the boy had a headache when evening came, he had turned out a very respectable piece of work. The fun came in comparing them.

“You’re somewhat of an impressionist,” the curator said, as he examined Colin’s two pictures carefully, “and you’ve succeeded in making your sketches look more submarine than I have. But I think your perspective is all out.”

“I was afraid that it was,” the boy replied, “though I tried hard to get it.”

“What do you think of them, Early Bird?” the museum expert asked, “I won’t tell you which is which.”

The boatman, who had a full share of the intelligence and alertness characteristic of the Bermuda colored population, so excellently governed under British rule, examined the four pictures carefully and then said:

“Wa’al, sah, Ah think Ah like these two the best.”

He handed back Mr. Collier’s drawing of the reef from the side and the boy’s sketch of the reef taken from above.

“I believe you’re right, Early Bird,” the scientist said, laughing, “the lad beat me out on that one.” Then, as he put the drawings away in the portfolio he added, “And now we’ll see how near we both came to the right thing.”

“How?” queried the boy.

“We’ll search a while for perfect specimens. A diver is coming along with us to-morrow and we’re going to scour the reefs for fine specimens of coral, sea-anémones, sea-whips, black rods, purple fans, and all the rest of them. Those that we can preserve we will, but the sea-anémones we’ll have to work on in the Aquarium on Agar’s Island, where they have some magnificent specimens.”

“In glass, you mean?” queried Colin. “I should like to see how that’s done.”

“Come to my laboratory in New York some time and I’ll show you,” his companion answered, “but I can’t do that here. I have a specially prepared black paper here and I’ll copy some of the anemone forms so that I can plan them in glass from my drawings. I’ll go with you to-morrow, but after that you’ll have to go out alone.”

Accordingly, Colin and the diver went out with Early Bird every day for a week, Colin spending the entire day peering through the water glass for perfect specimens, which, when sighted, the diver would descend to get. He secured an especially fine example of a long-spined black and white striped sea-urchin, with spines nearly seven inches in length, a number of pale-blue starfish (an unusual color in that genus), and one superb sea-fan of a glowing purple color nearly five feet across. Of sea-anémones he found a large variety, and those he brought to the aquarium, where Mr. Collier was working steadily; several kinds of “sea-puddings,” closely allied to the famous bêche-de-mer the table delicacy of China also were within his discoveries. The boy’s eyesight was keen, and the collecting fever found him an easy victim, but it was back-breaking work to stoop over the water glass all day.

After about a week of this, however, a surprise awaited him. He noticed, as they sailed into the bay, a very handsome steam yacht lying at anchor, a sea-going craft flying the New York Yacht Club’s burgee. On his return to the hotel Colin found his chief waiting for him, a little impatiently.

“We’re going to dinner on the Golden Falcon,” he said, as soon as he saw the boy, “she belongs to a friend of mine. He is going down to Florida and has offered to take us along. If I can arrange it, that will save us at least a week’s time.”

“Bully, fine!” Colin exclaimed. “Is that the yacht down there?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a beauty. All right, Mr. Collier, I’ll get ready just as fast as I can. And you ought to see a feather star I got to-day. It wasn’t so awfully deep down either.”

“I’ll see it later,” was the reply, “hurry and get ready now; I don’t want to be late going over there. Their launch is to come at half-past six and it is twenty after now, so that you need to move as fast as you know how.”

“Right, sir,” answered Colin, and off he sped.

The yacht was the finest of its kind that the boy had ever boarded and he spent a very pleasant evening, the more so as the owner of the vessel had his family aboard, including his son Paul, a lad almost the same age as Colin. Mr. Murren was a wealthy capitalist, who had financed a chain of drug-stores throughout the country and still kept a large amount of stock in them. This corporation used many thousands of sponges annually, needing moreover a high-grade article which was found difficult to procure. It had been thought wise to investigate the question of buying a sponge farm, and he had been asked to look into the matter. Accordingly, he was taking a run down the coast, but had come first to see the American Vice Consul at Bermuda to whom he was related by marriage.

“I heard a good deal about that sponge-farming business,” said Colin, when the other boy told him this. “Dr. Crafts told me how it was worked.”

“All the more reason for you to join us,” his new friend responded. “I hope you’re coming.”

“I hope so, too,” Colin answered, “and it’s likely enough that we will, since you say your father has been kind enough to ask us. I think Mr. Collier has nearly finished what he wanted to do in Bermuda, and if you are going straight to Florida, it would save us a lot of time, as well as being a jolly trip in itself.”

“Going to do more coral-hunting?” the other boy queried, for Colin had told him about his Bermuda work.

“A little of that, I think; but I believe Mr. Collier intends also to make an exhibit showing the way sponges grow. So you see he is as much interested as your father in reviewing the sponge question.”

At this juncture Colin heard his name called.

“Yes, Mr. Collier,” he answered.

“Do you think you have been over most of the reef?”

“Yes, sir, I think so,” the boy answered; “Early Bird said yesterday that we had covered the sea-garden grounds fairly thoroughly. But, of course, there are miles of reef that we haven’t seen.”

“I think, Mr. Murren,” the scientist said, turning to his host, “that I can finish up all my business here by to-morrow night and be ready for a start the following morning. If that’s agreeable to you, we shall be very glad to accept your invitation.”

“That’s agreed, then,” said the capitalist, “and now we’ll have some music.”

The trip to Florida on the Golden Falcon was one of the pleasantest Colin had ever known. The little craft fairly flew through the water. He liked his host and hostess immensely, both of whom were accomplished musicians, and he struck up quite a friendship with Paul. The capitalist’s son, though but a month or two younger than Colin, was quite inclined to give the latter a little hero-worship. And it was significant of Colin’s make-up that he was equally ready to take it. Little of note occurred on the voyage save that the yacht almost ran over a sunfish in the water, which turned a sluggish somersault and disappeared. What was of more interest to Colin and indeed to Paul also was the opportunity to use a very powerful microscope belonging to the museum curator and to find out about the almost invisible life of the ocean.

“You must remember,” the scientist told them, “that these tiny forms, which look like the most wonderful figures in a fairyland of geometry, exist in such billions that as they die, their light shells fall through the sea like a perpetual rain. Some of them, too, are so very light that it takes them a month to sink to the bottom.”

“But what can such tiny bits of things live on, Mr. Collier?” asked Paul; “other animals smaller still?”

“No, my boy,” was the reply, “on plants called diatoms. There are over four thousand species of these plants known, which are so small that the microscopic animals readily engulf them. Where it is too cold for surface animal life, as in the Antarctic Ocean, these dead diatoms form the mud on the bottom of the ocean, and in the extremely deep parts, the sea-bed is red clay, but most of it is an ‘ooze’ ’Globigerina,’ as it is called made up of the shells of those very creatures you have now been seeing on that microscope slide. You drop in and see me at New York, boys,” he added kindly, “and I’ll show you some models I have made of them.”

On arrival at Key West one of the first things that impressed itself upon Colin was the sponge wharf, where tens of thousands of sponges of every sort were drying in the hot September sun. The conversation had run upon sponges very frequently during the voyage, and Mr. Collier, who knew the subject thoroughly from a theoretical point of view, had been of great help to his host. But the economic and commercial side of the question was another matter. From this aspect Colin found that the remembrance of his conversation with Dr. Crafts in Washington stood him in good stead.

“As I understand it, Mr. Murren,” he said, as they stood on the wharf together, waiting for an approaching boat, “the government looks on the business of growing sponges much as it does on the growing of wheat or any other form of farming, only it is called aquiculture instead of agriculture. Sponge planting isn’t so very different from potato planting.”

“It looks entirely different to me,” the boy’s host replied, as he went down the wharf steps. “I’m sorry Mr. Collier was called away this afternoon, but I may as well give a preliminary look over this sponge-farming business and you boys might as well come along. There’s a man here who wants me to buy his sponge farm. Since Mr. Collier is here I’m not going to decide anything without his advice. He doesn’t want you this afternoon, does he?”

Colin hesitated a moment.

“Not as far as I know, Mr. Murren,” he answered.

“I wish you would come, then,” urged the capitalist. “You’ve picked up some ideas in Washington which may be of help.”

“I’ll be glad to come, if you feel I’m any use to you,” the boy replied, flattered at this evidence that he could be of service, “I was only afraid that I’d be in the way.”

Colin followed Paul and his father into the boat, where was waiting a negro as black as the proverbial black hat, a local fisherman who had taken up sponge growing, and who, while shrewd enough for a business deal, knew little about sponges.

“You were saying that the Bureau of Fisheries is going to take up sponge-farming?” the prospective buyer asked. “Do you know what success the government has had so far?”

“Enough to show that it can be done and that’s about all,” the boy replied. “Before long, I think, the Bureau will have a station down on the Keys here and that will be one of the first questions they will probably take up. As I heard it put, the Bureau aims to farm every acre of water as thoroughly as every acre of land.”

“That,” said the capitalist, “is an ideal that gives all sorts of chances for development.”

Presently the boatman stopped and, resting on his oars, said:

“Lots o’ sponges hyeh, boss.”

The would-be buyer took the water glass and looked through it at the bottom, but he was unaccustomed to the appearance of growing sponges and also to the use of a water glass, so that he gained little from it.

“I don’t see any,” he said.

“Aren’t there any round liver-colored lumps, Mr. Murren?” the boy asked.

“Yes, there are lots of those,” was the reply.

“Those are sponges.”

“They don’t look like it.”

“They are, sir, though. A skeleton doesn’t ever look just like a man. The sponge, as you use it in a bath, is just an animal’s skeleton, or it may be of several animals that have grown together.”

“Yo’ suah o’ that, boss?” asked the boatman. “I allus hear’ dat a sponge was a plant not any animal.”

“It’s an animal,” Colin said shortly.

“But I thought,” interjected Paul, “that the difference between a plant and an animal was that an animal can move around and a plant can’t.”

“Well, Paul,” the boy answered, “the young of sponges are larvae which swim in the water by threshing with short hairs until they find something suitable to stick on. Lots of animals which become fixtures are free-swimming when young, oysters, for instance.”

“Then a sponge doesn’t seed itself, like a plant?”

“No, Mr. Murren,” said Colin; “so far as I understand, the larvae, though of a very simple type, have a certain amount of choice. A seed has got to grow where it falls, or not at all, but a sponge larva, if it doesn’t find a suitable place on the first thing it touches, can swim about blindly until it finds one that will do.”

“Now about these sponges, Colin,” his host said, impressed by the boy’s clear though crude way of explaining himself, “look through the glass and tell me what you think about the bed.”

“There are quite a lot of sponges there,” the boy answered after a few minutes’ examination, “some of good size, too, but a number of them are dead. See, the sand has drifted half over them. There’s too much sand and too little rock.”

“Should they have a rock bottom?” the manufacturer queried.

“Rock am de bes’, suah,” the owner of the ground put in, “but a li’l bit o’ san’ don’ do no hahm. It shows dat de wateh am runnin’.”

“Yes,” said the boy, “the boatman is right there, Mr. Murren, sponges must be in a current after they have once taken hold. They can’t swim around to get their food, so, like all the fixed forms of life, their food must come to them. If there is no current there is not enough food carried past for them to live on. If the current is too strong the sponge has to make an extra tough skeleton to brace itself against the rush of water and then it becomes too coarse for commercial use. Some of the polyps live on tiny animals with a lot of flint in their shells and the skeleton gets like glass. They call them glass sponges. Conditions have got to be just right for their development, they’re a most particular sort of creature.”

“But how do they feed?”

“A sponge is a jelly-like colony of cells with a fibrous skeleton,” the boy explained; “the outside of him is toward the water and is full of small pores which branch all through his flesh and open at last into a big pore leading to the outside. All these pores are lined with tiny hairs that make a current of water go through the jelly-like flesh, which absorbs any microscopic life there may be. The water is taken in through the little pores and sent out through the big ones. Some sponge forms are of one animal, most are of colonies. But they are all on the same pattern, pumping water in and out again.”

“Then is a growing sponge all full of jelly?” asked Paul.

“All that I have seen are,” Colin replied.

“How do they get it out?”

“I c’n tell you ’bout that,” interjected Pete. “A sponge is all slimy an’ nasty. Yo’ put him in de sun an’ he dies quick an’ all de slime runs out. Den yo’ buries him in san’ ’til his insides all decay. Den you puts him in a pon’ an’ takes him out, an’ beats him wif a stick, lots o’ times oveh, maybe, ’til all de jelly an’ all de san’ an’ all de muck am out ob him. Den yo’ wash him in fresh wateh ’til he’s clean an’ lets him dry an’ he’s done.”

“But if sponges will reproduce themselves,” the capitalist said, returning to his former point, “what is the need of planting them?”

“You don’t have to work that way on their own beds, sir,” the boy answered, “planting is done to get more out of the industry, using the sea bottom in shallow waters which now is lying unused.”

“And you say only rocky land will do?”

“Any bottom that’s hard enough to keep the sponge from being covered up, Mr. Murren. Soft sand will wash, mud will ooze up, and rank marine grass or seaweed will smother the young cells. But any hard bottom in warm salt water with a current is good for sponges.”

“I see,” was the rejoinder. “As you say, the situation is not unlike farming. You can either farm cultivated sponge land or plant uncultivated land.”

“You can get land suitable for sponges for almost nothing, I suppose,” Colin said, “and then if you had a small sponge ground you could plant a larger area from it.”

“What do you think of this ground?”

The boy hesitated.

“I hardly think I know enough about it to say, Mr. Murren,” he said; “you ought to get an expert.”

“I’ll get an expert before I pay cash,” was the prompt answer, “but I want to know what you think.”

“Well, then, sir,” Colin answered, “I think it’s good ground, but not good enough.”

“Ah got a betteh one than this hyeh, boss,” put in the boatman, “it’s mah brotheh’s, but he might be willin’ to sell. Costs mo’ than mine, though.”

“Take us there,” ordered the capitalist.

The boatman took to his oars with a will, but it was a long pull, almost an hour elapsing before he stopped, wiped his forehead on his arms, and said, as before:

“Lots o’ sponges hyeh, boss.”

At a nod from the prospective buyer, Colin took the water glass and watched the bottom carefully as the boatman rowed slowly over it. How the boy wished for the lenses in the glasses belonging to Mr. Collier which he had used in Bermuda! But still, though the afternoon was drawing on and the sun did not strike the water at the right angle, Colin could see that it was unusually fine sponge ground.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s more like.”

Mr. Murren looked about him.

“How in the world do you know, Pete,” he said to the boatman, “that this is your ground or anybody else’s? I don’t see any stakes or evidences of ownership.”

“If Ah starts to haul up sponges on somebody else’s groun’ he’ll come up and make me get off, suah,” replied the boatman.

“But suppose he doesn’t see you.”

The boatman grinned.

“Dat certainly am his own lookout, boss,” he said.

“What a cut-throat game,” ejaculated the would-be buyer. “If a man bought a place he’d have to watch it all the time, then?”

“Suah, sah.”

“Thank you,” was the reply, “I’ll take some place in shallow water where I can build a house and hire some fellow to watch it and work it.”

“Ain’ no trouble hyeh,” the boatman said, shrugging his shoulders, “ev’body wo’k his own patch.”

“But how do you get the sponges?” was the query. “You have to dive for them, don’t you?”

The boatman shook his head.

“Sometimes, if de wateh’s mo’ than fifty feet deep. Not of’en. See, Ah show you.”

He reached under the forward thwart and pulled out a light three-pronged hook and fitted it to a jointed pole, screwing the two sections together so that it made one long pole of about twenty-four feet in length. He took the water glass and rowed the boat until it was directly over a sponge.

“Yo’ all keep de boat dere a li’l while,” he said to Colin, and the lad took the oars.

Then very deftly the boatman pushed the long unwieldy pole into the water and nicked a sponge from the bed, bringing it up intact. On reaching the surface it was seen to be slimy and with a milky fluid dripping from the bottom.

“That’s a ripe sponge, you see, Mr. Murren,” the boy said, pointing to the milky fluid; “the slimy stuff that’s dropping is full of germs of young sponges all ready to grow and swim and fix to something and then become proper sponges.”

“That may be a sponge,” said the prospective buyer, “but it looks more like a piece of liver.”

“Fine sponge, sah, good yellow sponge,” the boatman said, and Colin did not know enough either to affirm or deny.

“Now, Ah show yo’ sheepswool sponge, quite diff’nt,” the boatman said, and taking up his water glass he leaned over the edge.

Just as he did so, both Colin and his companion gave a cry.

“Sharks!”

The boatman looked around contemptuously.

“Nu’sing shahks,” he said, “sleep all de time.” He splashed his hand in the water and the sharks fled in all directions.

“You wouldn’t feel that way if you had been in the water,” hazarded the capitalist.

“Ah done ride on ’em,” was the reply. “Lots o’ boys ’round dese hyeh reefs think it fun to steal up ove’ a lot o’ nu’sing shahks, an’ den dive down an’ take a ride. Dey wouldn’t bite nothin’ biggeh than a sahdine.”

“But you have got dangerous sharks here?”

“Yes, sah, you bet,” the boatman answered; “dey was one ol’ white shahk was a holy terror; he use’ to show up hyeh reg’lah once a monf. Folks do say he eat up fo’ men at diff’rent times.”

“I thought Mr. Collier told us that those shark stories were exaggerated,” said Paul, turning to Colin. “I didn’t think so, now you see, they weren’t.”

“Oh, I guess the white shark is the real thing, all right,” Colin answered. “Some fishermen found a fair-sized young sea lion almost whole in a shark’s stomach about three years ago.”

“That must have been the fish that swallowed Jonah,” suggested Paul.

“He could have done it all right,” the other boy agreed, “and he is about the only fish that could.”

“There might be some in the bottom of the sea!”

“I don’t think so, Paul. Mr. Collier told me on the steamer that in the very deepest parts of the ocean there were no fish, only worms and sea-cucumbers and things like that.”

“If you’ll listen a minute, sah,” said the boatman, “yo’ll heah somefin’ wo’se than eveh come from de bottom ob de sea.”

“Worse?”

“Worse!”

The two exclamations rang like one as the two boys strained into attention. They listened intently and then across the water came a whisking rushing sound followed by a deep ‘boom’ and a distant splash. It was several moments, too, before the swell from that splash reached the boat; when it did, the craft rocked noticeably.

“What is that?” asked Colin.

“Vampa, sah,” answered the boatman, as he took his oars and started to row away in the opposite direction.

“Hold on a bit there,” the sponge-buyer said, “I never saw a vampire. What does it look like?”

“Some calls ’em sea-bat or devil-ray,” was the reply, “an’ the’re twenty, thirty feet ’cross sometimes. They looks lak a sting ray. Ah don’ wan’ to see ’em.”

“Isn’t that a harpoon down there in the boat?” the capitalist asked calmly.

“Yes, sah, oh, yes, sah, but Lordy, sah, yo’ can’ do nuffin wif a sea vampa. No, sah. Why, jes’ oveh yondah dey was a big schooneh towed out to sea by a vampa.”

“A schooner?”

“Yes, sah, a seven’y-ton schooneh. Yes, sah. He mus’ ha’ been a big fellah an’ goin’ swimmin’ along he struck de anchoh chain wif his hohns. It made him mad, right mad, it did, an’ he jes’ heave up dat hyeh anchoh an’ toted it off to sea, draggin’ de ship wif him.”

The owner of the Golden Falcon laughed.

“Can you beat that? That’s the worst fish story I’ve heard, Colin. You tell some good ones, too!”

“It’s an old story,” the boy answered, “and I believe it’s true. They have often run away with boats.”

The capitalist took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

“I’ve harpooned dozens of porpoises from the Falcon,” he said, “but I never had a chance at a sea vampire. This begins to look interesting.”

“The devil ray, or manta as it is often called, will give you a run for your money,” said Colin, “and after all we can cut the line.”

“We’ll not cut any line,” was the response. “Now, Pete, get after him.”

But the negro fairly blubbered in terror.

“Lordy, lordy,” he cried, “an’ what yo’ goin’ t’ do to a po’ ol’ niggeh. Ah’ll do an’thin’ yo’ say, Ah’ll tell yo’ de troof about de sponge fahms, an’thin’, onl’ don’ go afteh dat vampa.”

“You’ll tell me the truth about the sponge farms, eh?” the prospective buyer remarked sternly. “So you were trying to put up a crooked deal. I’ll attend to you when we get ashore. Now you row after that ‘vampa,’ as you call it, and as quick as you know how.”

The negro was about to refuse, but he did not dare.

“Oh, Lordy, boss,” he cried, “don’ go any neaheh. Yas, sah, yas, sah,” he added as he saw the yachtsman make a move towards him, “yas, sah, Ah’ll row. But we all gwine to be smoddehed alive. Ah jes’ knows it.”

Again, close at hand, came the swish and the dull ‘boom,’ and the negro shivered. Colin was conscious that his heart was pounding a little and he caught himself wishing that it were the middle of the day instead of evening. Then out of the water not ten feet from the boat a dark witch-like specter swooped into the sky, black, horned, with bat-like wings and a long naked tail like a gigantic rat.

Pete gave a squeal of fright.

The monster rose till he was almost three feet clear of the surface, then turned so as to strike the water absolutely flat, and just before the crash and splash of the fall, Murren hurled the harpoon into the fish, and sprang back to clear the line. Although drenched and gasping from the torrent of water thrown over the boat by the devil ray, Colin took a bight of the line from the second coil and passed it around the foremost thwart. He was just in time, for a few seconds later the rope tautened. There was just one jerk and the boat started flying through the water, sending up a green wall on either side that threatened to swamp it every instant.

With the fight really begun, Colin became at once quite calm. Paul, who was an absolutely fearless youngster, was laughing in glee.

“Which way are we going, Pete?” asked the capitalist.

“Lordy, Lordy, don’ as’ me; gwine to de bottom, boss. Ah knows we’he gwine to de bottom.”

The negro crouched down in the bottom of the boat, and the sponge buyer roared at him:

“Sit up and watch where we’re going, you coward! You know these reefs.”

“It don’ matteh, boss, de vampa tuhn roun’ in a minute an’ jump on de boat an’ smoddeh we all.”

It was not a pleasant suggestion. The ray was undoubtedly big enough to do that very thing, and everybody in the boat had seen its power to leap. But even the little study that Colin had given to fishes came to his aid.

“All rays live on shellfish,” he said, “and they have small mouths with plates instead of teeth to crush the shells with. So that it really couldn’t do us any harm, any way.”

“It’s de smoddehin’, boss, de smoddehin’. Oh, why did Ah try an’ make trouble ober dem durn sponge beds? Ef Ah eber gets on sho’ again Ah’ll be a betteh man. Lordy, Lordy, what am Ah gwine to do?”

His voice rose in a shriek.

“He’s a-comin’ now!”

The pointed fin jerked suddenly and a third of the gigantic shape heaved itself into the air as the devil ray whirled. There was an instant of suspense, but the giant went past, one huge fin beating the air like the waving of some uncanny monstrous moth born in the terrors of a nightmare, and the boat was wrenched around sharply, half filling it and almost throwing Colin out.

Over almost exactly the same course that he had taken, the ray raced back, the weight of the boat seeming to make no difference to its speed; and then a second time the creature turned. It seemed impossible that with a speed of not less than twenty miles an hour so huge a creature the size of one side of a tennis court could twist about in its own length. How the rope and the frame of the boat stood the strain no one ever knew.

Once more the vampire turned; the boat nearly went over, but she was a staunch little craft, and the fish started down the lagoon between the reefs at its top speed. Often the creature put its two horn-like tentacles down for a dive, but the water was everywhere shallow and there was no chance to drag the boat under.

“It doesn’t seem to be tiring much,” the capitalist remarked, “but I don’t see what more we can do.”

“No,” Colin answered, “I don’t think the ray feels our weight at all. I believe it’s going faster.”

“We’s all gwine to de bottom,” wailed the negro. “Lordy, Ah been a bad man, but ef Ah ebeh gets mah two feet asho’ Ah’ll nebeh do nuffin again!”

There was no doubt of it, the vampire was going faster and faster every minute. The line hissed as it cut through the water, and Pete, despite his moaning, was baling for dear life. Darkness was closing in and the ray sped on. On either side were reefs, and many times the boat grazed sharp coral which would have ripped the bottom out of her if she had struck. Mr. Murren stood by the bow with knife in hand ready to cut, waiting to the last minute.

Presently a line of breakers, between two islets, appeared directly ahead. It was only a matter of seconds till they would be reached, but remembering how the ray had turned before, Colin clutched the gunwale of the boat to prevent being flung out of it like a stone from a catapult when the creature swerved.

“It’s a-comin’, now!” shrieked Pete. “We’s a-gwine to be smoddehed. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Ah’s a dead niggeh.”

“Hold on tight, all, look out for yourself, Paul,” Mr. Murren cried; “he’s turning!”

But he was wrong.

Instead of the black fin edging its way up, the whole great bulk of the uncanny creature heaved itself above the water like a great cloud and fell into the surf on the rocks, flapped upon them, although half stranded, and with a heave that seemed to make the reef tremble, plunged into the sea beyond.

“Better cut!” cried Colin.

But before the word was fairly out of his lips, the bright steel gleamed in the dark, and with a grinding crash that seemed like the end of the world to Colin, the boat crumpled into splinters on the reef and the three men were thrown in a heap among the breakers.

The negro gave a yell that was enough to scare any one out of a year’s growth and lay spread out upon a rock as though he was some ungainly kind of black crab, arms and legs in every direction, while he fairly gibbered with fright.

“Lordy, Lordy, don’ let de debbil come an’ take me now! Lordy, Ah ain’ fit to die! Don’ let him come back an’ smoddeh us on de rocks! Ah ain’ never goin’ to get in a boat agen! On’y let me get home dis once!”

Paul, though the youngest of the party, had escaped the most easily. He had pitched clear against Pete and thus had broken his fall, while at the same time the impact of his weight had knocked nearly all the breath out of the negro’s body. He had enough left, however, with which to make a powerful complaint.

Bruised, even bleeding in one or two places, Colin picked himself out of the wreckage and looked across in the faint light at the owner of the Golden Falcon, who seemed to have escaped with a few scratches and who was standing on the reef looking out to sea as though he wished that the fight were still on.

“I wonder,” he said, as he saw that the boys were not hurt, “if the vampire had as much sport out of that as we did.”