Into the Ocean's Depths
A Sequel to "From the Ocean's Depths"
_By Sewell Peaslee Wright_
The two shark-faced creatures were dragging at my armsand legs.]
[Sidenote: To save Imee's race of Men-Who-Returned-To-The-Sea, twoLand-Men answer the challenge of the dreaded Rorn, corsairs of theunder-seas.]
I read the telegram for the second time. Then I folded it up, put itin my pocket, and pressed the little button on my desk. My mind wasmade up.
"Miss Fentress, I'm leaving this afternoon on an extended trip. TheFlorida address will reach me after Thursday. Tell Wade and Bennett tocarry on. I think you have everything in hand? Is everything clear toyou?"
"Yes, Mr. Taylor." Miss Fentress was not in the least surprised. Shewas used to my sudden trips. The outfit got along perfectly withoutme; sometimes I think my frequent absences are good for the business.The boys work like the devil to make a fine showing while I'm away.And Miss Fentress is a perfect gem of a secretary. I had nothing toworry about there.
"Fine! Will you get my diggings on the phone?" I hurriedly put my fewpapers in place, and signed a couple of letters. Then Josef was on thewire.
"Josef? Pack my bags right away, will you? For Florida. The usualthings.... Yes, right away. I'll be leaving by noon.... Yes, drivingthrough."
* * * * *
That was that. There were a few more letters to sign, a few hastyinstructions to be given regarding one or two matters that werehanging fire. Then, on my way to my bachelor apartments, I read thetelegram through again:
THINK IT WORTH WHILE IF YOU FEEL ADVENTUROUS AND HAVE NOTHING PRESSING TO COME TO THE MONSTROSITY STOP MAKE YOUR WILL FIRST STOP SHALL LOOK FOR YOU ANY DAY AS I KNOW YOU ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR EXCITEMENT AND NEVER HAVE ANYTHING IMPORTANT TO DO SO DON'T BOTHER TO WIRE STOP PERHAPS WE SHALL SEE HER AGAIN
MERCER
I smiled at Mercer's frank opinion of my disposition and my importanceto my business. But I frowned over the admonition to make my will, andthe last telling statement in the wire: "Perhaps we shall see heragain." I knew whom he meant by "her."
Josef had my bags waiting for me. A few hurried instructions, most ofthem shouted over my shoulder, and I was purring down the main drag,my duffel in the rumble, and the roadster headed due south.
"Perhaps we shall see her again." Those words from the telegram keptcoming before my eyes. Mercer knew what he was about, if he wanted mycompany, when he put that line in his wire.
* * * * *
I have already told the story of our first meeting with the strangebeing from the ocean's depths that, wounded and senseless, had beenflung up on the beach near Warren Mercer's Florida estate. In all thehistory of civilization, no stranger bit of flotsam had ever been castup by a storm.
Neither of us would ever forget that slim white creature, swathed inher veil of long, light golden hair, as she crouched on the bottom ofMercer's swimming pool, and pictured for us, by means of Mercer'sthought-telegraph (my own name for the device; he has a long andscientific title for it with as many joints as a centipede), the storyof her people.
They had lived in a country of steaming mist, when the world was veryyoung. They had been forced into the sea to obtain food, and aftermany generations they had gone back to the sea as man once emergedfrom it. They had grown webs on their hands and feet, and theybreathed oxygen dissolved in water, as fishes do, instead of taking itfrom the atmosphere. And under the mighty Atlantic, somewhere, weretheir villages.
The girl had pictured all these things for us, and then--nearly a yearago, now--she had pleaded with us to let her return to her people. Andso we had put her back into the sea, and she had bade us farewell. Butjust before she disappeared, she had done a strange thing.
* * * * *
She had pointed, under the water, out towards the depth, and then,with a broad, sweeping motion of her arm, she had indicated the shore,as though to promise, it seemed to me, that she intended to return.
And now, Mercer said, we might see her again! How? Mercer,conservative and scientific, was not the man to make rash promises.But how...?
The best way to solve the riddle was to reach Mercer, and I broke thespeed laws of five states three days running.
I did not even stop at my own little shack. It was only four milesfrom there to the huge, rather neglected estate, built in boom timesby some newly-rich promoter, and dubbed by Mercer "The Monstrosity."
Hardly bothering to slow down, I turned off the concrete onto thelong, weed-grown gravel drive, and shot between the two massive,stuccoed pillars that guarded the drive. Their corroded bronze plates,bearing the original title of the estate, "The Billows," were apromise that my long, hard drive was nearly at an end.
* * * * *
As soon as the huge, rambling structure was fairly in sight, I pressedthe flat of my hand on the horn button. By the time I came to alocked-wheel halt, with the gravel rattling on my fenders, Mercer wasthere to greet me.
"It's ten o'clock," he grinned as he shook hands. "I'd set noon as thehour of your arrival. You certainly must have made time, Taylor!"
"I did!" I nodded rather grimly, recalling one or two narrow squeaks."But who wouldn't, with a wire like this?" I produced the crumpledtelegram rather dramatically. "You've got a lot to explain."
"I know it." Mercer was quite serious now. "Come on in and we'll mixhighballs with the story."
Locked arm in arm, we entered the house together, and settledourselves in the huge living room.
Mercer, I could see at a glance, was thinner and browner than when wehad parted, but otherwise, he was the same lithe, soft-mannered littlescientist I had known for years; dark-eyed, with an almost beautifulmouth, outlined by a slim, closely cropped and very black moustache.
"Well, here's to our lady from the sea," proposed Mercer, when Carson,his man, had brought the drinks and departed. I nodded, and we bothsipped our highballs.
"Briefly," said my friend, "this is the story. You and I know thatsomewhere beneath the Atlantic there are a people who went back towhence they came. We have seen one of those people. I propose that,since they cannot come to us, we go to them. I have made preparationsto go to them, and I wanted you to have the opportunity of going withme, if you wish."
"But how, Mercer? And what--"
* * * * *
He interrupted with a quick, nervous gesture.
"I'll show you, presently. I believe it can be done. It will be adangerous adventure, though; I was not joking when I advised you tomake your will. An uncertain venture, too. But, I believe, mostwonderfully worth while." His eyes were shining now with all theenthusiasm of the scientist, the dreamer.
"It sounds mighty appealing," I said. "But how...."
"Finish your drink and I'll show you."
I downed what was left of my highball in two mighty gulps.
"Lead me to it, Mercer!"
He smiled his quiet smile and led the way to what had been thebilliard room of "The Billows," but which was the laboratory of "TheMonstrosity." The first thing my eyes fell upon were two gleamingmetal objects suspended from chains let into the ceiling.
"Diving suits," explained Mercer. "Rather different from anythingyou've ever seen."
They were different. The body was a perfect globe, as was thehead-piece. The legs were cylindrical, jointed at knee and thigh withhuge discs. The feet were solid metal, curved rocker-like on thebottom, and at the ends of the arms were three hooked talons, theconcave sides of two talons facing the concave side of the third. Thearms were hinged at the elbow just as the legs were hinged, but therewas a huge ball-and-socket joint at the shoulder.
* * * * *
"But Mercer!" I protested. "No human being could even stand up withthat weight of metal on and aroun
d him!"
"You're mistaken, Taylor," smiled Mercer. "That is not solid metal,you see. And it is an aluminum alloy that is not nearly as heavy as itlooks. There are two walls, slightly over an inch apart, braced byinnumerable trusses. The fabric is nearly as strong as that much solidmetal, and infinitely lighter. They work all right, Taylor. I know,because I've tried them."
"And this hump on the back?" I asked, walking around the odd, danglingfigures, hanging like bloated metal skeletons from their chains. Ihad thought the bodies were perfect globes; I could see now that atthe rear there was a humplike excrescence across the shoulders.
"Air," explained Mercer. "There are two other tanks inside theglobular body. That shape was adopted, by the way, because a globe canwithstand more pressure than any other shape. And we may have to gowhere pressures are high."
"And so," I said, "we don these things and stroll out into theAtlantic looking for the girl and her friends?"
"Hardly. They're not quite the apparel for so long a stroll. Youhaven't seen all the marvels yet. Come along!"
* * * * *
He led the way through the patio, beside the pool in which our strangevisitor from the depths had lived during her brief stay with us, andout into the open again. As we neared the sea, I became aware, for thefirst time, of a faint, muffled hammering sound, and I glanced atMercer inquiringly.
"Just a second," he smiled. "Then--there she is, Taylor!"
I stood still and stared. In a little cove, cradled in a cunning,spidery structure of wood, a submarine rested upon the ways.
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "You're going into this right, Mercer!"
"Yes. Because I think it's immensely worth while. But come along andlet me show you the _Santa Maria_--named after the flagship ofColumbus' little fleet. Come on!"
Two men with army automatics strapped significantly to their beltsnodded courteously as we came up. They were the only men in sight, butfrom the hammering going on inside there must have been quite asizeable crew busy in the interior. A couple of raw pine shacks, somelittle distance away, provided quarters for, I judged, twenty orthirty men.
"Had her shipped down in pieces," explained Mercer. "The boat thatbrought it lay to off shore and we lightered the parts ashore. Atremendous job. But she'll be ready for the water in a week; ten daysat the latest."
"You're a wonder," I said, and I meant it.
* * * * *
Mercer patted the red-leaded side of the submarine affectionately."Later," he said, "I'll take you inside, but they're busy as the devilin there, and the sound of the hammers fairly makes your head ring.You'll see it all later, anyway--if you feel you'd like to share theadventure with me?"
"Listen," I grinned as we turned back towards the house, "it'll takemore than those two lads with the pop-guns to keep me out of the_Santa Maria_ when she sails--or dives, or whatever it is she'ssupposed to do!"
Mercer laughed softly, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. Iimagine we were both pretty busy with our thoughts; I know that I was.And several times, as we walked along, I looked back over my shouldertowards the ungainly red monster straddling on her spindling woodenlegs--and towards the smiling Atlantic, glistening serenely in thesun.
* * * * *
Mercer was so busy with a thousand and one details that I found myselfvery much in the way if I followed him around, so I decided to loaf.
For weeks after we had put our strange girl visitor back into the seafrom whence Mercer had taken her, I had watched from a comfortableseat well above the high-water mark that commanded that section ofshore. For I had felt sure by that last strange gesture of hers thatshe meant to return.
I located my old seat, and I found that it had been used a great dealsince I had left it. There were whole winnows of cigarette butts, someof them quite fresh, all around. Mercer, cold-blooded scientist as hewas, had hoped against hope that she would return too.
It was a very comfortable seat, in the shade of a little cluster ofpalms, and for the next several days I spent most of my time there,reading and smoking--and watching. No matter how interesting the book,I found myself, every few seconds, lifting my eyes to search the beachand the sea.
I am not sure, but I think it was the eighth day after my arrival thatI looked up and saw, for the first time, something besides the smilingbeach and the ceaseless procession of incoming rollers. For an instantI doubted what I saw; then, with a cry that stuck in my throat, Idropped my book unheeded to the sand and raced towards the shore.
* * * * *
She was there! White and slim, her pale gold hair clinging to her bodyand gleaming like polished metal in the sun, she stood for a moment,while the spray frothed at her thighs. Behind her, crouching below thesurface, I could distinguish two other forms. She had returned, andnot alone!
One long, slim arm shot out toward me, held level with the shoulder:the well-remembered gesture of greeting. Then she too crouched belowthe surface that she might breathe.
As I ran out onto the wet sand, the waves splashing around my anklesall unheeded, she rose again, and now I could see her lovely smile,and her dark, glowing eyes. I was babbling--I do not know what. BeforeI could reach her, she smiled and sank again below the surface.
I waded on out, laughing excitedly, and as I came close to her, shebobbed up again out of the spray, and we greeted each other in themanner of her people, hands outstretched, each gripping the shoulderof the other.
She made a quick motion then, with both hands, as though she placed acap upon the shining glory of her head, and I understood in an instantwhat she wished: the antenna of Mercer's thought-telegraph, by theaid of which she had told us the story of herself and her people.
* * * * *
I nodded and smiled, and pointed to the spot where she stood, tryingto show her by my expression that I understood, and by my gesture,that she was to wait here for me. She smiled and nodded in return, andcrouched again below the surface of the heaving sea.
As I turned toward the beach, I caught a momentary glimpse of the twowho had come with her. They were a man and a woman, watching me withwide, half-curious, half-frightened eyes. I recognized them instantlyfrom the picture she had impressed upon my mind nearly a year ago. Shehad brought with her on her journey her mother and her father.
Stumbling, my legs shaking with excitement, I ran through the water.With my wet trousers flapping against my ankles, I sprinted towardsthe house.
I found Mercer in the laboratory. He looked up as I came rushing in,wet from the shoulders down, and I saw his eyes grow suddenly wide.
* * * * *
I opened my mouth to speak, but I was breathless. And Mercer took thewords from my mouth before I could utter them.
"She's come back!" he cried. "She's come back! Taylor--she has?" Hegripped me, his fingers like steel clamps, shaking me with his amazingstrength.
"Yes." I found my breath and my voice at the same instant. "She'sthere, just where we put her into the sea, and there are two otherswith her--her mother and her father. Come on, Mercer, and bring yourthought gadget!"
"I can't!" he groaned. "I've built an improvement on it into thediving armor, and a central instrument on the sub, but the oldapparatus is strewn all over the table, here, just as it was when weused it the other time. We'll have to bring her here."
"Get a basin, then!" I said. "We'll carry her back to the pool just aswe took her from it. Hurry!"
And we did just that. Mercer snatched up a huge glass basin used inhis chemistry experiments, and we raced down to the shore. As well aswe could we explained our wishes, and she smiled her quick smile ofunderstanding. Crouching beneath the water, she turned to hercompanions, and I could see her throat move as she spoke to them. Theyseemed to protest, dubious and frightened, but in the end she seemedto reassure them, and we picked her up, swathed in her hair as in as
ilken gown, and carried her, her head immersed in the basin of water,that she might breathe in comfort, to the pool.
It all took but a few minutes, but it seemed hours. Mercer's handswere shaking as he handed me the antenna for the girl and another formyself, and his teeth were chattering as he spoke.
"Hurry, Taylor!" he said. "I've set the switch so that she can do thesending, while we receive. Quickly, man!"
* * * * *
I leaped into the pool and adjusted the antenna on her head, makingsure that the four electrodes of the crossed curved members pressedagainst the front and back and both sides of her head. Then, hastily,I climbed out of the pool, seated myself on its edge, and put on myown antenna.
Perhaps I should say at this time that Mercer's device for conveyingthought could do no more than convey what was in the mind of theperson sending. Mercer and I could convey actual words and sentences,because we understood each other's language, and by thinking in words,we conveyed our thoughts in words. One received the impression,almost, of having heard actual speech.
We could not communicate with the girl in this fashion, however, forwe did not understand her speech. She had to convey her thoughts tous by means of mental pictures which told her story. And this is thestory of her pictures unfolded.
First, in sketchy, half-formed pictures, I saw her return to thevillage, of her people; her welcome there, with curious crowds aroundher, questioning her. Their incredulous expressions as she told themof her experience were ludicrous. Her meeting with her father andmother brought a little catch to my throat, and I looked across thepool at Mercer. I knew that he, too, was glad that we bad put her backinto the sea when she wished to go.
* * * * *
These pictures faded hastily, and for a moment there was only thecircular swirling as of gray mist; that was the symbol she adopted todenote the passing of time. Then, slowly, the picture cleared.
It was the same village I had seen before, with its ragged, warped,narrow streets, and its row of dome-shaped houses, for all the worldlike Eskimo igloos, but made of coral and various forms of vegetation.At the outskirts of the village I could see the gently moving, shadowyforms of weird submarine growths, and the quick darting shapes ofinnumerable fishes.
Some few people were moving along the streets, walking with oddlyspringy steps. Others, a larger number, darted here and there abovethe roofs, some hovering in the water as gulls hover in the air,lazily, but the majority apparently on business or work to be executedwith dispatch.
Suddenly, into the midst of this peaceful scene, three figures camedarting. They were not like the people of the village, for they weresmaller, and instead of being gracefully slim they were short andpowerful in build. They were not white like the people of the girl'svillage, but swarthy, and they were dressed in a sort of tight-fittingshirt of gleaming leather--shark-skin, I learned later. They carried,tucked through a sort of belt made of twisted vegetation, two long,slim knives of pointed stone or bone.
* * * * *
But it was not until they seemed to come close to me that I saw thegreat point of difference. Their faces were scarcely human. The nosehad become rudimentary, leaving a large, blank expanse in the middleof their faces that gave them a peculiarly hideous expression. Theireyes were almost perfectly round, and very fierce, and their mouthshuge and fishlike. Beneath their sharp, jutting jaws, between theangle of the jaws and a spot beneath the ears, were huge, longitudinalslits, that intermittently showed blood-red, like fresh gashes cut inthe sides of their throats. I could see even the hard, bony cover thatprotected these slits, and I realized that these were gills! Here wererepresentatives of a people that had gone back to the sea ages beforethe people of the girl's village.
Their coming caused a sort of panic in the village, and the threenoseless creatures strode down the principal street grinning hugely,glancing from right to left, and showing their sharp pointed teeth.They looked more like sharks than like human beings.
A committee of five gray old men met the visitors, and conducted theminto one of the larger houses. Insolently, the leader of the threeshark-faced creatures made demands, and the scene changed swiftly tomake clear the nature of those demands.
* * * * *
The village was to give a number of its finest young men and women tothe shark-faced people; about fifty of each sex, I gathered, to beservants, slaves, to the noseless ones.
The scene shifted quickly to the interior of the house. The old menwere shaking their heads, protesting, explaining. There was fear ontheir faces, but there was determination, too.
One of the three envoys snarled and came closer to the five old men,lifting a knife threateningly. I thought for an instant that he wasabout to strike down one of the villagers; then the picture dissolvedinto another, and I saw that he was but threatening them with what hecould cause to happen.
The fate of the village and the villagers, were the demands of thethree refused, was a terrible one. Hordes of the noseless creaturescame swarming. They tore the houses apart, and with their long, slimwhite weapons they killed the old men and women, and the children. Thevillagers fought desperately, but they were outnumbered. Theshark-skin kirtles of the invaders turned their knives like armor, andthe sea grew red with swirling blood that spread like scarlet smokethrough the water. Then, this too faded, and I saw the old mencowering, pleading with the three terrible envoys.
The leader of the three shark-faced creatures spoke again. He wouldgive them time--a short revolving swirl of gray that indicated only abrief time, apparently--and return for an answer. Grinning evilly, thethree turned away, left the dome-shaped house, and darted away overthe roofs of the village into the dim darkness of the distant waters.
* * * * *
I saw the girl, then, talking to the elders. They smiled sadly, andshook their heads hopelessly. She argued with them earnestly, paintinga picture for them: Mercer and myself, as she viewed us, tall and verystrong and with great wisdom in our faces. We too walked along thestreets of the village. The hordes of shark-faced ones came, like aswarm of monstrous sharks, and--the picture was very vague andnebulous, now--we put them to rout.
She wished us to help her, she had convinced the elders that we could.She, her mother and father, started out from the village. Three timesthey had fought with sharks, and each time they had killed them. Theyhad found the shore, the very spot where we had put her back into thesea. Then there was a momentary flash of the picture she had calledup, of Mercer and I putting the shark-faced hordes to rout, and then,startlingly, I was conscious of that high, pleading sound--the soundthat I had heard once before, when she had begged us to return her toher people.
The sound that I knew was her word for "_Please!_"
There was a little click. Mercer had turned the switch. He wouldtransmit now; she and I would listen.
* * * * *
In the center of the village--how vaguely and clumsily he picturedit!--rested the _Santa Maria_. From a trap in the bottom two bulging,gleaming figures emerged. Rushing up, a glimpse through theface-plates revealed Mercer and myself. The shark-faced hordesdescended, and Mercer waved something, something like a huge bottle,towards them. None of the villagers were in sight.
The noseless ones swooped down on us fearlessly, knives drawn, pointedteeth revealed in fiendish grins. But they did not reach us. Bydozens, by scores, they went limp and floated slowly to the floor ofthe ocean. Their bodies covered the streets, they sprawled across theroofs of the houses. And in a few seconds there was not one alive ofall the hundreds who had come!
I looked down at the girl. She was smiling up at me through the clearwater, and once again I felt the strange, strong tug at myheart-strings. Her great dark eyes glowed with a perfect confidence, asupreme faith.
We had made her a promise.
I wondered if it would be possible to ke
ep it.
* * * * *
In the day following, the _Santa Maria_ was launched. Two days later,trial trips and final adjustments completed, we submerged for thegreat adventure.
It sounds very simple when recorded thus in a few brief lines. It wasnot, however, such a simple matter. Those three days were full ofhectic activity. Mercer and I did not sleep more than four hours anyof those three nights.
We were too busy to talk. Mercer worked frantically in his laboratory,slaving feverishly beside the big hood. I overlooked the tests of thesubmarine and the loading of the necessary supplies.
The girl we had taken back to her parents, giving her to understandthat she was to wait. They went away, but every few hours returned, asthough to urge us to greater haste. And at last we were ready, and thegirl and her two companions seated themselves on the tiny deck of the_Santa Maria_, just forward of the conning tower, holding themselvesin place by the chains. We had already instructed the girl in herduties: we would move slowly, and she should guide us, by pointingeither to the right or the left.
* * * * *
I will confess I gave a last long, lingering look at the shore beforethe hatch of the conning tower was clamped down. I was not exactlyafraid, but I wondered if I would ever step foot on solid land again.
Standing in the conning tower beside Mercer, I watched the sea rise atan angle to meet us, and I dodged instinctively as the first greenwave pelted against the thick porthole through which I was looking. Aninstant later the water closed over the top of the conning tower, andat a gentle angle we nosed towards the bottom of the sea.
An account of the trip itself, perhaps, does not belong in thisrecord. It was not a pleasant adventure in itself, for the _SantaMaria_, like every undersea craft, I suppose, was close, smelly, andcramped. We proceeded very slowly, for only by so doing could ourguide keep her bearings, and how she found the way was a mystery toall of us. We could see but very little, despite the clearness of thewater.
It was by no means a sight-seeing trip. For various reasons, Mercerhad cut our crew to the minimum. We had two navigating officers,experienced submarine men both, and five sailors, also experienced inundersea work. With such a short crew, Mercer and I were both keptbusy.
* * * * *
Bonnett, the captain, was a tall, dark chap, stooped from years in thelow, cramped quarters of submarines. Duke, our second-officer, was ayoungster hardly out of his 'teens, and as clever as they come. Andalthough both of them, and the crew as well, must have been agog withquestions, neither by word nor look did they express their feelings.Mercer had paid for obedience without curiosity, and he got it.
We spent the first night on the bottom, for the simple reason that hadwe come to the surface, we might have come down into territoryunfamiliar to our guide. As soon as the first faint light began tofilter down, however, we proceeded, and Mercer and I crowded togetherinto the conning tower.
"We're close," said Mercer. "See how excited they are, all three ofthem."
The three strange creatures were holding onto the chains and staringover the bulging side of the ship. Every few seconds the girl turnedand looked back at us, smiling, her eyes shining with excitement.Suddenly she pointed straight down, and held out her arm inunmistakable gesture. We were to stop.
* * * * *
Mercer conveyed the order instantly to Bonnett at the controls, andall three of our guides dived gracefully off the ship and disappearedinto the depths below.
"Let her settle to the bottom, Bonnett," ordered Mercer. "Slowly ...slowly...."
Bonnett handled the ship neatly, keeping her nicely trimmed. We cameto rest on the bottom in four or five seconds, and as Mercer and Istared out eagerly through the round glass ports of the conningtower, we could see, very dimly, a cluster of dark, roundedprojections cropping out from the bed of the ocean. We were only a fewyards from the edge of the girl's village.
The scene was exactly as we had pictured it, save that it was notnearly as clear and well lighted. I realized that our eyes were notaccustomed to the gloom, as were those of the girl and her people, butI could distinguish the vague outlines of the houses, and the slowlyswaying shapes of monstrous growths.
"Well, Taylor," said Mercer, his voice shaking with excitement, "herewe are! And here"--peering out through the glass-covered portagain--"are her people!"
* * * * *
The whole village was swarming around us. White bodies hovered aroundus as moths around a light. Faces pressed against the ports and staredin at us with great, amazed eyes.
Then, suddenly the crowd of curious creatures parted, and the girlcame darting up with the five ancients she had showed us before. Theywere evidently the council responsible for the government of thevillage, or something of the sort, for the other villagers bowed theirheads respectfully as they passed.
The girl came close to the port through which I was looking, andgestured earnestly. Her face was tense and anxious, and from time totime she glanced over her shoulder, as though she feared the coming ofan enemy.
"Our time's short, I take it, if we are to be of service," saidMercer. "Come on, Taylor; into the diving suits!"
I signaled the girl that we understood, and would hurry. Then Ifollowed Mercer into our tiny stateroom.
"Remember what I've told you," he said, as we slipped into the heavywoolen undergarments we were to wear inside the suits. "You understandhow to handle your air, I believe, and you'll have no difficultygetting around in the suit if you'll just remember to go slowly. Yourjob is to get the whole village to get away when the enemy is sighted.Get them to come this way from the village, towards the ship,understand. The current comes from this direction; the way thevegetation bends shows that. And keep the girl's people away until Isignal you to let them return. And remember to take your electriclantern. Don't burn it more than is necessary; the batteries are notlarge and the bulb draws a lot of current. Ready?"
* * * * *
I was, but I was shaking a little as the men helped me into the mightyarmor that was to keep the pressure of several atmospheres fromcrushing my body. The helmet was the last piece to be donned; when itwas screwed in place I stood there like a mummy, almost completelyrigid.
Quickly we were put into the air lock, together with a large iron boxcontaining a number of things Mercer needed. Darkness and water rushedin on us. The water closed over my head. I became aware of the soft,continuous popping sounds of the air-bubbles escaping from the reliefvalve of the head-piece.
For a moment I was dizzy and more than a little nauseated. I couldfeel the cold sweat pricking my forehead. Then there was a sudden glowof light from before me, and I started walking towards it. I found Icould walk now; not easily, but, after I caught the trick of it,without much difficulty. I could move my arms, too, and theinterlocking hooks that served me for fingers. When my real fingersclosed upon a little cross-bar at the end of the armored arms, andpulled the bars towards me, the steel claws outside came together,like a thumb and two fingers.
* * * * *
In a moment we stood upon the bottom of the ocean. I turned my headinside the helmet, and there, beside me, was the sleek, smooth sideof the _Santa Maria_. On my other side was Mercer, a huge, dim figurein his diving armor. He made an awkward gesture towards his head, andI suddenly remembered something.
Before me, where I could operate it with a thrusting movement of mychin, was a toggle switch. I snapped it over, and heard Mercer'svoice: "--n't forget everything I tell him."
"I know it," I said mentally to him. "I was rather rattled. O.K. now,however. Anything I can do?"
"Yes. Help me with this box, and then get the girl to put on theantenna you'll find there. Don't forget the knife and the light."
"Right!" I bent over the box with him, and we both came near falling.We opened the lid, how
ever, and I hooked the knife and the light intotheir proper places outside my armor. Then, with the antenna for thegirl, so that we could establish connections with her, and throughher, with the villagers, I moved off.
This antenna was entirely different from the one used in previousexperiments. The four cross-members that clasped the head were finer,and at their junction was a flat black circular box, from which rose ablack rod some six inches in height, and topped by a black sphere halfthe size of my fist.
* * * * *
These perfected thought-telegraphs (I shall continue to use my owndesignation for them, as clearer and more understandable thanMercer's) did not need connecting wires; they conveyed their impulsesby Hertzian waves to a master receiver on the _Santa Maria_, whichamplified them and re-broadcast them so that each of us could bothsend and receive at any time.
As I turned, I found the girl beside me, waiting anxiously. Behind herwere the five ancients. I slipped the antenna over her head, andinstantly she began telling me that danger was imminent.
To facilitate matters, I shall describe her messages as though shespoke; indeed, her pictures were as clear, almost, as speech in mynative tongue. And at times she did use certain sound-words; it was inthis way that I learned, by inference, that her name was _Imee_, thather people were called _Teemorn_ (this may have been the name of thecommunity, or perhaps it was interchangeable--I am not sure) and thatthe shark-faced people were the _Rorn_.
"The Rorn come!" she said quickly. "Two days past, the three cameagain, and our old men refused to give up the slaves. Today they willreturn, these Rorn, and my people, the Teemorn will all be made dead!"
* * * * *
Then I told her what Mercer had said: that she and every one of herpeople must flee swiftly and hide, beyond the boat, a distance beyondthe village. Mercer and I would wait here, and when the Rorn came, itwas they who would be made dead, as we had promised. Although how, Iadmitted to myself, being careful to hide the thought that she mightnot sense it, I didn't know. We had been too busy since the girl'sarrival to go into details.
She turned and spoke quickly to the old men. They looked at medoubtfully, and she urged them vehemently. They turned back towardsthe village, and in a moment the Teemorn were stalking by obediently,losing their slim white forms in the gloom behind the dim bulk of the_Santa Maria_, resting so quietly on the sand.
They were hardly out of sight when suddenly Mercer spoke through theantenna fitted inside my helmet.
"They're coming!" he cried. "Look above and to your right! The Rorn,as Imee calls them, have arrived!"
I looked up and beheld a hundred--no, a thousand!--shadowy formsdarting down on the village, upon us. They, too, were just as the girlhad pictured them: short, swart beings with but the suggestion of anose, and with pulsing gill-covers under the angles of their jaws.Each one gripped a long, slim white knife in either hand, and theirtight-fitting shark-skin armor gleamed darkly as they swooped downupon us.
* * * * *
Eagerly I watched my friend. In the clasping talons of his left handhe held a long, slim flask that glinted even in that dim, confusingtwilight. Two others, mates to the first, dangled at his waist.Lifting it high above his head, he swung his metal-clad right arm, andshattered the flask he held in his taloned left hand.
For an instant nothing happened, save that flittering bits of brokenglass shimmered their way to the sand. Then the horde of noseless onesseemed to dissolve, as hundreds of limp and sprawling bodies sank tothe sand. Perhaps a half of that great multitude seemed struck dead.
"Hydrocyanic acid, Taylor!" cried Mercer exultantly. "Even diluted bythe sea water, it kills almost instantly. Go back and make sure thatnone of the girl's people come back before the current has washed thisaway, or they'll go in the same fashion. Warn her to keep them back!"
* * * * *
I hurried toward the _Santa Maria_, thinking urgent warnings forImee's benefit. "Stay back! Stay back, Imee! The Rorn are falling tothe sand, we have made many of them dead, but the danger for you andyour people is still here. Stay back!"
"Truly, do the Rorn become dead? I would like to see that with my owneyes. Be careful that they do not make you dead also, and your friend,for they have large brains, these Rorn."
"Do not come to see with your own eyes, or you will be as the Rorn!" Ihurried around the submarine, to keep her back by force, if that werenecessary. "You must--"
"Help, Taylor!" cut in a voice--Mercer's. "These devils have got me!"
"Right with you!" I turned and hurried back as swiftly as I could,stumbling over the bodies of dead Rorn that had settled everywhere onthe clean yellow sand.
I found Mercer in the grip of six of the shark-faced creatures. Theywere trying desperately to stab him, but their knives bent and brokeagainst the metal of his armor. So busy were they with him that theydid not notice me coming up, but finding their weapons useless, theysuddenly snatched him up, one at either arm and either leg, and twograsping him by the head-piece, and darted away with him, carrying hisbulging metal body between them like a battering ram, while he kickedand struggled impotently.
"They are taking him to the Place of Darkness!" cried Imee suddenly,having read my impressions of the scene. "Oh, go quickly, quickly,toward the direction of your best hand--to your right! I shallfollow!"
"No! No! Stay back!" I warned her frantically. All but these six Rornhad fallen victims of Mercer's hellish poison, and while they seemedto be suffering no ill effects, I thought it more than likely thatsome sly current might bring the deadly poison to the girl, did shecome this way, and kill her as surely as it had killed these hundredsof Rorn.
* * * * *
To the right, she had said. Towards the Place of Darkness. I hurriedout of the village in the direction she indicated, towards the distantgleam of Mercer's armor, rapidly being lost in the gloom.
"I'm coming, Mercer!" I called to him. "Delay them as much as you can.You're going faster than I can."
"I can't help myself much," replied Mercer. "Doing what I can.Strong--they're devilish strong, Taylor. And, at close range, I cansee you were right. They have true gill-covers; their noses arerudimentary and--"
"The devil take your scientific observations! Drag! Slow them down.I'm losing sight of you. For heaven's sake, drag!"
"I'm doing what I can. Damn you, if I could only get a hand free--" Irealized that this last was directed at his captors, and plunged on.
* * * * *
Huge, monstrous growths swirled around me like living things. My feetcrunched on shelled things, and sank into soft and slimy creepingthings on the bottom. I cursed the water that held me back so gentlyyet so firmly; I cursed the armor that made it so hard for me to movemy legs. But I kept on, and at last I began to gain on them; I couldsee them quite distinctly, bending over Mercer, working on him....
"Do your best, Taylor," urged Mercer desperately. "We're on the edgeof a sort of cliff; a fault in the structure of the ocean bed. They'retying me with strong cords of leather. Tying a huge stone to my body.I think they--" I had a momentary flash of the scene as Mercer saw itat that instant: the horrid noseless face close to his, the swartbodies moving with amazing agility. And at his very feet, a yawningprecipice, holding nothing but darkness, leading down and down intonothingness.
"Run quickly!" It was Imee. She, too, had seen what I had seen. "Thatis the Place of Darkness, where we take those whom the Five deemworthy of the Last Punishment. They will tie the stone to him, andbear him out above the Blackness, and then they will let him go!Quickly! Quickly!"
I was almost upon them now, and one of the six turned and saw me.Three of them darted towards me, while the others held Mercer flatupon the edge of the precipice. If they had only realized that byrolling his armored body a foot or two, he would sink ... without thestone.... But they did not. Their brains had
little reasoning power,apparently. The attaching of a stone was necessary, in theirexperience; it was necessary now.
* * * * *
With my left hand I unhooked my light; I already gripped my knife inmy right hand. Swinging the light sharply against my leg, I struck thetoggle-switch, and a beam of intense brilliancy shot through thegloom. It aided me, as I had thought it would; it blinded theselarge-eyed denizens of the deep.
Swiftly I struck out with the knife. It hacked harmlessly into theshark-skin garment of one of the men, and I stabbed out again. Two ofthe men leaped for my right arm, but the knife found, this time, thethroat of the third. My beam of light showed palely red, for a moment,and the body of the Rorn toppled slowly to the bed of the ocean.
The two shark-faced creatures were hammering at me with their fists,dragging at my arms and legs, but I plunged on desperately towardsMercer. Myriads of fish, all shapes and colors and sizes, attracted bythe light, swarmed around us.
"Good boy!" Mercer commended. "See if you can break this last flask ofacid, here at my waist. See--"
* * * * *
With a last desperate plunge, fairly dragging the two Rorn who tuggedat me, I fell forward. With the clenched steel talons of my righthand, I struck at the silvery flask I could see dangling from Mercer'swaist. I hit it, but only a glancing blow; the flask did not shatter.
"Again!" commanded Mercer. "It's heavy annealed glass--hydrocyanicacid--terrible stuff--even the fumes--"
I paid but slight heed. The two Rorn dragged me back, but I managed tocrawl forward on my knees, and with all my strength, I struck at theflask again.
This time it shattered, and I lay where I fell, sobbing with weakness,looking out through the side window of my head-piece.
The five Rorn seemed to suddenly lose their strength. They struggledlimply for a moment, and then floated down to the waiting sandbeneath us.
"Finish," remarked Mercer coolly. "And just in time. Let's see if wecan find our way back to the _Santa Maria_."
* * * * *
We were weary, and we plodded along slowly, twin trails of air-bubbleslike plumes waving behind us, rushing upwards to the surface. I feltstrangely alone at the moment, isolated, cut off from all mankind, onthe bottom of the Atlantic.
"Coming to meet you, all of us," Imee signaled us. "Be careful whereyou step, so that you do not walk in a circle and find again the Placeof Darkness. It is very large."
"Probably some uncharted deep," threw in Mercer. "Only the larger oneshave been located."
For my part, I was too weary to think. I just staggered on.
A crowd of slim, darting white shapes surrounded us. They swam beforeus, showing the way. The five patriarchs walked majestically beforeus; and between us, smiling at us through the thick lenses of ourheadpieces, walked Imee. Oh, it was a triumphal procession, and had Ibeen less weary, I presume I would have felt quite the hero.
* * * * *
Imee pictured for us, as we went along, the happiness, thegratefulness of her people. Already, she informed us, great numbers ofyoung men were clearing away the bodies of the dead Rorn. She was sohappy she could hardly restrain herself.
A dim skeleton shape bulked up at my left. I turned to look at it, andImee, watching me through the lights of my head-piece, nodded andsmiled.
Yes, this was the very hulk by which she had been swimming when theshark had attacked her, the shark which had been the cause of theaccident. She darted on to show me the very rib upon which her headhad struck, stunning her so that she had drifted, unconscious andstorm-tossed, to the shore of Mercer's estate.
I studied the wreck. It was battered and tilted on its beam ends, butI could still make out the high poop that marked it as a very oldship.
"A Spanish galleon, Mercer," I conjectured.
"I believe so." And then, in pictured form, for Imee's benefit, "Ithas been here while much time passed?"
"Yes." Imee came darting back to us, smiling. "Since before theTeemorn, my people were here. A Rorn we made prisoner once told us hispeople discovered it first. They went into this strange skeleton, andinside were many blocks of very bright stone." She pictured quiteclearly bars of dully-glinting bullion. Evidently the captive had toldhis story well.
* * * * *
"These stones, which were so bright, the Rorn took to their city,which is three swims distant." How far that might be, I could not evenguess. A swim, it seemed, was the distance a Teemorn could travelbefore the need for rest became imperative. "There were many Rorn, andthey each took one stone. And of them, they made a house for theirleader." The leader, as she pictured him, being the most hideoustravesty of a thing in semi-human form that the mind could imagine:incredibly old and wrinkled and ugly and gray, his noseless faceseamed with cunning, his eyes red rimmed and terrible, his teethgleaming, white and sharp, like fangs.
"A whole house, except the roof," she went on. "It is there now, andit is gazed at with much admiration by all the Rorn. All this ourprisoner told us before we took him, with a rock made fast to him, outover the Place of Darkness. He, too, was very proud of their leader'shouse."
"Treasure!" I commented to Mercer. "If we could find the city of theRorn, we might make the trip pay for itself!"
I could sense his wave of amusement.
"I think," he replied, "I'd rather stand it myself. These Rorn don'tappeal to me."
It was over half an hour before we were at last free of our divingsuits.
The first thing Captain Bonnett said:
"We've got to get to the surface, and that quickly. Our air supply isrunning damnably low. By the time we blow out the tanks we'll be justabout out. And foul air will keep us here until we rot. I'm sorry,sir, but that's the way matters stand."
* * * * *
Mercer, white-faced and ill, stared at him dazedly.
"Air?" he repeated groggily--I knew just how he felt--"We should havelots of air. The specifications--"
"But we're dealing with facts, not specifications, sir," said CaptainBonnett. "Another two hours here and we won't leave ever."
"Then it can't be helped, Captain," muttered Mercer. "We'll go up. Andback. For more compressed air. We must remember to plot our courseexactly. You kept the record on the way out as I instructed you?"
"Yes, sir," said Captain Bonnett.
"Just a minute, then," said Mercer.
Weakly he made his way forward to the little cubbyhole in which washoused the central station of his thought-telegraph. I didn't eveninspect the gleaming maze of apparatus. I merely watched him dully ashe plugged in an antenna similar to the one we had left with Imee, andadjusted the things on his head.
* * * * *
His eyes brightened instantly. "She's still wearing her antenna," hesaid swiftly over his shoulder. "I'll tell her that something'shappened; we must leave, but that we will return."
He sat there, frowning intently for a moment, and then dragged theantenna wearily from his head. He touched a switch somewhere, andseveral softly glowing bulbs turned slowly red and then dark.
"You and I," he groaned, "had better go to bed. We overdid it. Sheunderstands, I think. Terribly sorry, terribly disappointed. Somesort of celebration planned, I gather. Captain Bonnett!"
"Yes, sir?"
"You may proceed now as you think best," said Mercer. "We're retiring.Be sure and chart the course back, so we may locate this spot again."
"Yes, sir!" said Captain Bonnett.
* * * * *
When I awoke we were at anchor, our deck barely awash, before thedeserted beach of Mercer's estate. Still feeling none too well, Mercerand I made our way to the narrow deck.
Captain Bonnett was waiting for us, spruce in his blue uniform, hisshoulders bowed as always.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he offered, smiling
crisply. "The open airseems good, doesn't it?"
It did. There was a fresh breeze blowing in from the Atlantic, and Ifilled my lungs gratefully. I had not realized until that instant justhow foul the air below had been.
"Very fine, Captain," said Mercer, nodding. "You have signaled the menon shore to send out a boat to take us off?"
"Yes, sir; I believe they're launching her now."
"And the chart of our course--did the return trip check with theother?"
"Perfectly, sir." Captain Bonnett reached in an inner pocket of hisdouble-breasted coat, extracted two folded pages, and extended them,with a little bow, to Mercer.
Just as Mercer's eager fingers touched the precious papers, however,the wind whisked them from Bonnett's grasp and whirled them into thewater.
Bonnett gasped and gazed after them for a split second; then, barelypausing to tear off his coat, he plunged over the side.
* * * * *
He tried desperately, but before he could reach either one of thetossing white specks, they were washed beneath the surface anddisappeared. Ten minutes later, his uniform bedraggled and shapeless,he pulled himself on deck.
"I'm sorry, sir," he gasped, out of breath. "Sorrier than I can say. Itried--"
Mercer, white-faced and struggling with his emotions, looked down andturned away.
"You don't remember the bearings, I suppose?" he ventured tonelessly.
"I'm sorry--no."
"Thank you, Captain, for trying so hard to recover the papers," saidMercer. "You'd better change at once; the wind is sharp."
* * * * *
The captain bowed and disappeared down the conning tower. Then Mercerturned to me, and a smile struggled for life.
"Well, Taylor, we helped her out, anyway," he said slowly. "I'm sorrythat--that Imee will misunderstand when we don't come back."
"But, Mercer," I said swiftly, "perhaps we'll be able to find our wayback to her. You thought before, you know, that--"
"But I can see now what an utterly wild-goose chase it would havebeen." Mercer shook his head slowly. "No, old friend, it would beimpossible. And--Imee will not come again to guide us; she will thinkwe have deserted her. And"--he smiled slowly up into my eyes--"perhapsit is as well. After all, the photographs and the data I wanted woulddo the world no practical good. We did Imee and her people a goodturn; let's content ourselves with that. I, for one, am satisfied."
"And I, old timer," I said, placing my hand affectionately upon hisshoulder. "Here's the boat. Shall we go ashore?"
We did go ashore, silently. And as we got out of the boat, and setfoot again upon the sand, we both turned and looked out across thesmiling Atlantic, dancing brightly in the sun.
The mighty, mysterious Atlantic--home of Imee and her people!