"Have more sense than to ask such questions.

Is Barbican alive! Am _I_ alive?
They're all alive, I tell you, only we must be quick about reaching them before the air gives out.
That's what's the matter! Air! Provisions, water--abundance! But air--oh! that's their weak point! Quick, Captain, quick--They're throwing the reel--I must see her rate!" So saying, he hurried off to the stern, followed by General Morgan.

Chief Engineer Murphy and the Captain of the _Susquehanna_ were thus left for awhile together.
These two men had a long talk on the object of their journey and the likelihood of anything satisfactory being accomplished.

The man of the sea candidly acknowledged his apprehensions.

He had done everything in his power towards collecting suitable machinery for fishing up the Projectile, but he had done it all, he said, more as a matter of duty than because he believed that any good could result from it; in fact, he never expected to see the bold adventurers again either living or dead.
Murphy, who well understood not only what machinery was capable of effecting, but also what it would surely fail in, at first expressed the greatest confidence in the prosperous issue of the undertaking.