Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 Read online

  Out of the Dreadful Depths

  _By C. D. Willard_

  "_Help--help--the eyes--the eyes!_"]

  [Sidenote: Robert Thorpe seeks out the nameless horror that is suckingall human life out of ships in the South Pacific.]

  Robert Thorpe reached languidly for a cigarette and, with lazyfingers, extracted a lighter from his pocket.

  "Be a sport," he repeated to the gray haired man across the table. "Bea sport, Admiral, and send me across on a destroyer. Never been on adestroyer except in port. It ... would be a new experience ... enjoyit a lot...."

  In the palm-shaded veranda of this club-house in Manila, AdmiralStruthers, U. S. N., regarded with undisguised disfavor the young manin the wicker chair. He looked at the deep chest and the broadshoulders which even a loose white coat could not conceal, at theshort, wavy brown hair and the slow, friendly smile on the face below.

  A likable chap, this Thorpe, but lazy--just an idler--he hadconcluded. Been playing around Manila for the last two months--restingup, he had said. And from what? the Admiral had questioneddisdainfully. Admiral Struthers did not like indolent young men, butit would have saved him money if he had really got an answer to hisquestion and had learned just why and how Robert Thorpe had earned avacation.

  "You on a destroyer!" he said, and the lips beneath the close-cut graymustache twisted into a smile. "That would be too rough an experiencefor you, I am afraid, Thorpe. Destroyers pitch about quite a bit, youknow."

  He included in his smile the destroyer captain and the young lady whocompleted their party. The young lady had a charming and saucy smileand knew it; she used it in reply to the Admiral's remark.

  "I have asked Mr. Thorpe to go on the _Adelaide_," she said. "We shallbe leaving in another month--but Robert tells me he has other plans."

  "Worse and worse," was the Admiral's comment. "Your father's yacht isnot even as steady as a destroyer. Now I would suggest a nicecomfortable liner...."

  * * * * *

  Robert Thorpe did not miss the official glances of amusement, but hiscalm complacence was unruffled. "No," he said, "I don't just fancyliners. Fact is, I have been thinking of sailing across to the Statesalone."

  The Admiral's smile increased to a short laugh. "I would make a betyou wouldn't get fifty miles from Manila harbor."

  The younger man crushed his cigarette slowly into the tray. "How muchof a bet?" he asked. "What will you bet that I don't sail alone fromhere to--where are you stationed?--San Diego?--from here to SanDiego?"

  "Humph!" was the snorted reply. "I would bet a thousand dollars onthat and take your money for Miss Allaire's pet charity."

  "Now that's an idea," said Thorpe. He reached for a check book in hisinner pocket and began to write.

  "In case I lose," he explained, "I might be hard to find, so I willjust ask Miss Allaire to hold this check for me. You can do the same."He handed the check to the girl.

  "Winner gets his thousand back, Ruth; loser's money goes to any littleorphans you happen to fancy."

  "You're not serious," protested the Admiral.

  "Sure! The bank will take that check seriously, I promise you. And Isaw just the sloop I want for the trip ... had my eye on her for thepast month."

  "But, Robert," began Ruth Allaire, "you don't mean to risk your lifeon a foolish bet?"

  Thorpe reached over to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'mglad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousnessbeneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U.S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose more briskly from his chair.

  "Thorpe...." said Admiral Struthers. He was thinking deeply, trying torecollect. "Robert Thorpe.... I have a book by someone of thatname--travel and adventure and knocking about the world. Young man,are you _the_ Robert Thorpe?"

  "Why, yes, if you wish to put it that way," agreed the other. He wavedlightly to the girl as he moved away.

  "I must be running along," he said, "and get that boat. See you all inSan Diego!"

  * * * * *

  The first rays of the sun touched with golden fingers the tops of thelazy swells of the Pacific. Here and there a wave broke to spray underthe steady wind and became a shower of molten metal. And in the boat,whose sails caught now and then the touch of morning, Robert Thorpestirred himself and rose sleepily to his feet.

  Out of the snug cabin at this first hint of day, he looked first atthe compass and checked his course, then made sure of the lashingabout the helm. The steady trade-winds had borne him on through thenight, and he nodded with satisfaction as he prepared to lower hislights. He was reaching for a line as the little craft hung for aninstant on the top of a wave. And in that instant his eyes caught amarking of white on the dim waters ahead.

  "Breakers!" he shouted aloud and leaped for the lashed wheel. Heswung off to leeward and eased a bit on the main-sheet, then lashedthe wheel again to hold on the new course.

  Again from a wave-crest he stared from under a sheltering hand. Thebreakers were there--the smooth swells were foaming--breaking inmid-ocean where his chart, he knew, showed water a mile deep. Beyondthe white line was a three-master, her sails shivering in the breeze.

  The big sailing ship swung off on a new tack as he watched. Was shedodging those breakers? he wondered. Then he stared in amazementthrough the growing light at the unbroken swells where the white linehad been.

  * * * * *

  He rubbed his sleepy eyes with a savage hand and stared again. Therewere no breakers--the sea was an even expanse of heaving water.

  "I could swear I saw them!" he told himself, but forgot thisperplexing occurrence in the still more perplexing maneuvers of thesailing ship.

  This steady wind--for smooth handling--was all that such a craft couldask, yet here was this old-timer of the sea with a full spread ofcanvas booming and cracking as the ship jibed. She rolled far over ashe watched, recovered, and tore off on a long, sweeping circle.

  The one man crew of the little sloop should have been preparingbreakfast, as he had for many mornings past, but, instead he swung hislittle craft into the wind and watched for near an hour the erraticrushes and shivering haltings of the larger ship. But long before thistime had passed Thorpe knew he was observing the aimless maneuvers ofan unmanned vessel.

  And he watched his chance for a closer inspection.

  * * * * *

  The three-master _Minnie R._, from the dingy painting of the stern,hung quivering in the wind when he boarded her. There was a brokenlog-line that swept down from the stern, and he caught this and madehis own boat fast. Then, watching his chance, he drew close and wentoverboard, the line in his hand.

  "Like a blooming native after cocoanuts," he told himself as he wentup the side. But he made it and pulled himself over the rail as theship drew off on another tack.

  Thorpe looked quickly about the deserted deck. "Ahoy, there!" heshouted, but the straining of rope and spars was his only answer.Canvas was whipping to ribbons, sheets cracked their frayed ends likelashes as the booms swung wildly, but a few sails still held andcaught the air.

  He was on the after deck, and he leaped first for the wheel that waskicking and whirling with the swing of the rudder. A glance at thecanvas that still drew, and he set her on a course with a fewsteadying pulls. There was rope lying about, and he lashed the wheelwith a quick turn or two and watched the ship steady down to a smoothslicing of the waves from the west.

  And only then did the man take time to quiet his panting breath andlook about him in the unnatural quiet of this strangely deserted deck.He shouted again and walked to a companionway to repeat the hail. Onlyan echo, sounding hollowly from below, replied to break the vastsilence.

  * * * * *

  It was puzzling--inconceivable. Thorpe looked about him to note thelifeboats snug and undisturbed in their places. No sign there of anabandonment of the boat, but abando
ned she was, as the silence toldonly too plainly. And Thorpe, as he went below, had an uncanny feelingof the crew's presence--as if they had been there, walked where hewalked, shouted and laughed a matter of a brief hour or two before.

  The door of the captain's cabin was burst in, hanging drunkenly fromone hinge. The log-book was open; there were papers on a rude desk.The bunk was empty where the blankets had been thrown hurriedlyaside. Thorpe could almost see the skipper of this mystery shipleaping frantically from his bed at some sudden call or commotion. Achair was smashed and broken, and the man who examined it curiouslywiped from his hands a disgusting slime that was smeared stickily onthe splintered fragments. There was a fetid stench within hisnostrils, and he passed up further examination of this room.

  Forward in the fo'c'sle he felt again irresistibly the recent presenceof the crew. And again he found silence and emptiness and a disorderthat told of a fear-stricken flight. The odor that sickened andnauseated the exploring man was everywhere. He was glad to gain thefreedom of the wind-swept deck and rid his lungs of the vile breathwithin the vessel.

  He stood silent and bewildered. There was not a living soul aboard theship--no sign of life. He started suddenly. A moaning, whimpering crycame from forward on the deck!

  Thorpe leaped across a disorder of tangled rope to race toward thebow. He stopped short at sight of a battered cage. Again the moaningcame to him--there was something that still lived on board theill-fated ship.

  * * * * *

  He drew closer to see a great, huddled, furry mass that crouched andcowered in a corner of the cage. A huge ape, Thorpe concluded, and itmoaned and whimpered absurdly like a human in abject fear.

  Had this been the terror that drove the men into the sea? Had this apeescaped and menaced the officers and crew? Thorpe dismissed thethought he well knew was absurd. The stout wood bars of the cage werebroken. It had been partially crushed, and the chain that held it tothe deck was extended to its full length.

  "Too much for me," the man said slowly, aloud; "entirely too much forme! But I can't sail this old hooker alone; I'll have to get out andlet her drift."

  He removed completely one of the splintered bars from the broken cage."I've got to leave you, old fellow," he told the cowering animal, "butI'll give you the run of the ship."

  He went below once more and came quickly back with the log-book andpapers from the captain's room. He tied these in a tight wrapping ofoilcloth from the galley and hung them at his belt. He took the wheelagain and brought the cumbersome craft slowly into the wind. The baremast of his own sloop was bobbing alongside as he went down the lineand swam over to her.

  Fending off from the wallowing hulk, he cut the line, and his smallcraft slipped slowly astern as the big vessel fell off in the wind anddrew lumberingly away on its unguided course.

  She vanished into the clear-cut horizon before the watching man ceasedhis staring and pricked a point upon his chart that he estimated washis position.

  And he watched vainly for some sign of life on the heaving waters ashe set his sloop back on her easterly course.

  * * * * *

  It was a sun-tanned young man who walked with brisk strides into theoffice of Admiral Struthers. The gold-striped arm of the uniformed manwas extended in quick greeting.

  "Made it, did you?" he exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

  "All O.K.," Thorpe agreed. "Ship and log are ready for yourverification."

  "Talk sense," said the officer. "Have any trouble or excitement? Orperhaps you are more interested in collecting a certain bet than youare in discussing the trip."

  "Damn the bet!" said the young man fervently. "And that's just what Iam here for--to talk about the trip. There were some little incidentsthat may interest you."

  He painted for the Admiral in brief, terse sentences the picture ofthat daybreak on the Pacific, the line of breakers, white in thevanishing night, the abandoned ship beyond, cracking her canvas totatters in the freshening breeze. And he told of his boarding her andof what he had found.

  "Where was this?" asked the officer, and Thorpe gave his position ashe had checked it.

  "I reported the derelict to a passing steamer that same day," headded, but the Admiral was calling for a chart. He spread it on thedesk before him and placed the tip of a pencil in the center of anunbroken expanse.

  "Breakers, you said?" he questioned. "Why, there are hundreds offathoms here, Mr. Thorpe."

  * * * * *

  "I know it," Thorpe agreed, "but I saw them--a stretch of white waterfor an eighth of a mile. I know it's impossible, but true. But forgetthat item for a time, Admiral. Look at this." He opened a brief caseand took out a log-book and some other papers.

  "The log of the _Minnie R._," he explained briefly. "Nothing in it butroutine entries up to that morning and then nothing at all."

  "Abandoned," mused the Admiral, "and they did not take to the boats.There have been other instances--never explained."

  "See if this helps any," suggested Thorpe and handed the other twosheets of paper. "They were in the captain's cabin," he added.

  Admiral Struthers glanced at them, then settled back in his chair.

  "Dated September fourth," he said. "That would have been the dayprevious to the time you found her." The writing was plain, in acareful, well-formed hand. He cleared his throat and read aloud:

  "Written by Jeremiah Wilkens of Salem, Mass., master of the _MinnieR._, bound from Shanghai to San Pedro. I have sailed the seas forforty years, and for the first time I am afraid. I hope I may destroythis paper when the lights of San Pedro are safe in sight, but I amwriting here what it would shame me to set down in the ship's log,though I know there are stranger happenings on the face of the watersthan man has ever seen--or has lived to tell.

  * * * * *

  "All this day I have been filled with fear. I have been watched--Ihave felt it as surely as if a devil out of hell stood beside me withhis eyes fastened on mine. The men have felt it, too. They have beenfrightened at nothing and have tried to conceal it as I havedone.--And the animals....

  "A shark has followed us for days--it is gone to-day. The cats--wehave three on board--have howled horribly and have hidden themselvesin the cargo down below. The mate is bringing a big monkey to be soldin Los Angeles. An orang-outang, he calls it. It has been an uglybrute, shaking at the bars of its cage and showing its ugly teeth eversince we left port. But to-day it is crouched in a corner of its cageand will not stir even for food. The poor beast is in mortal terror.

  "All this is more like the wandering talk of an old woman muttering ina corner by the fireside of witches and the like than it is like atruthful account set down by Jeremiah Wilkins. And now that I havewritten it I see there is nothing to tell. Nothing but the shamefulaccount of my fear of some horror beyond my knowing. And now that itis written I am tempted to destroy--No, I will wait--"

  "And now what is this?" Admiral Struthers interrupted his reading toask. He turned the paper to read a coarse, slanting scrawl at thebottom of the page.

  "The eyes--the eyes--they are everywhere above us--God help--" Thewriting trailed off in a straggling line.

  * * * * *

  The lips beneath the trim gray mustache drew themselves into a hardline. It was a moment before Admiral Struthers raised his eyes tomeet those of Robert Thorpe.

  "You found this in the captain's cabin?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "And the captain was--"

  "Gone."

  "Blood stains?"

  "No, but the door had been burst off its hinges. There had been astruggle without a doubt."

  The officer mused for a minute or two.

  "Did they go aboard another vessel?" he pondered. "Abandon ship--openthe sea-cocks--sink it for the insurance?" He was trying vainly tofind some answer to the problem, some explanation that would notimpose too great a strain upon his
own reason.

  "I have reported to the owners," said Thorpe. "The _Minnie R._ was notheavily insured."

  The Admiral ruffled some papers on his desk to find a report.

  "There has been another," he told Thorpe. "A tramp freighter is listedas missing. She was last reported due east of the position you give.She was coming this way--must have come through about the samewater--" He caught himself up abruptly. Thorpe sensed that an Admiralof the Navy must not lend too credulous an ear to impossible stories.

  "You've had an interesting experience, Mr. Thorpe," he said. "Mostinteresting. Probably a derelict is the answer, some hull just afloat.We will send out a general warning."

  He handed the loose papers and the log book to the younger man. "Thisstuff is rubbish," he stated with emphasis. "Captain Wilkins held hiscommand a year or so too long."

  "You will do nothing about it?" Thorpe asked in astonishment.

  "I said I would warn all shipping; there is nothing more to be done."

  "I think there is." Thorpe's gray eye were steady as he regarded theman at the desk. "I intend to run it down. There have been other suchinstances, as you said--never explained. I mean to find the answer."

  * * * * *

  Admiral Struthers smiled indulgently. "Always after excitement," hesaid. "You'll be writing another book, I expect. I shall look forwardto reading it ... but just what are you going to do?"

  "I am going to the Islands," said Thorpe quietly. "I am going tocharter a small ship of some sort, and I am going out there and campon that spot in the hope of seeing those eyes and what is behind them.I am leaving to-night."

  Admiral Struthers leaned back to indulge in a hearty laugh. "I refusedyou a passage on a destroyer once," he said, "and it was an expensivemistake. I don't make the same mistake twice. Now I am going to offeryou a trip....

  "The _Bennington_ is leaving to-day on a cruise to Manila. I'll holdher an extra hour or two if you would like to go. She can drop you atHonolulu or wherever you say. Lieutenant Commander Brent is incommand--you remember him in Manila, of course."

  "Fine," Thorpe responded. "I'll be there."

  "And," he added, as he took the Admiral's hand, "if I didn't object tobetting on a sure thing I would make you a little proposition. I wouldbet any money that you would give your shirt to go along."

  "I never bet, either," said Admiral Struthers, "on a sure loss. Nowget out of here, you young trouble-shooter, and let the Navy get towork." His eyes were twinkling as he waved the young man out.

  * * * * *

  Thorpe found himself comfortably fixed on the _Bennington_. Brent, hercommander, was a fine example of the aggressive young chaps that thedestroyer fleet breeds. And he liked to play cribbage, Thorpe found.They were pegging away industriously the sixth night out when thefirst S.O.S. reached them. A message was placed before the commander.He read it and tossed it to Thorpe as he rose from his chair.

  "S.O.S.," said the radio sheet, "_Nagasaki Maru_, twenty-fourthirty-five N., one five eight West. Struck something unknown. Down atthe bow. May need help. Please stand by."

  Captain Brent had left the room. A moment later, and the quiver andtremble of the _Bennington_ told Thorpe they were running full speedfor the position of the stricken ship.

  But: "Twenty-four thirty-five North," he mused, "and less than twodegrees west of where the poor old _Minnie R._ got hers. I wonder ...I wonder...."

  "We will be there in four hours," said Captain Brent on his return."Hope she lasts. But what have they struck out there? Derelictprobably, though she should have had Admiral Struthers' warning."

  Robert Thorpe made no reply other than: "Wait here a minute, Brent. Ihave something to show you."

  * * * * *

  He had not told the officer of his mission nor of his experience, buthe did so now. And he placed before him the wildly improbablestatement of the late Captain Wilkins.

  "Something is there," surmised Captain Brent, "just awash,probably--no superstructure visible. Your _Minnie R._ hit the samething."

  "Something is there," Thorpe agreed. "I wish I knew what."

  "This stuff has got to you, has it?" asked Brent as he returned thepapers of Captain Wilkins. He was quite evidently amused at thethought.

  "You weren't on the ship," said Thorpe, simply. "There was nothing tosee--nothing to tell. But I know...."

  He followed Brent to the wireless room.

  "Can you get the _Nagasaki_?" Brent asked.

  "They know we are coming, sir," said the operator. "We seem to be theonly one anywhere near."

  He handed the captain another message. "Something odd about that," hesaid.

  "_U. S. S. Bennington_," the captain read aloud. "We are still afloat.On even keel now, but low in water. No water coming in. Engines fullspeed ahead, but we make no headway. Apparently aground. _NagasakiMaru._"

  "Why, that's impossible," Brent exclaimed impatiently. "What kind offoolishness--" He left the question uncompleted. The radio man waswriting rapidly. Some message was coming at top speed. Both Brent andThorpe leaned over the man's shoulder to read as he wrote.

  "_Bennington_ help," the pencil was writing, "sinking fast--decksalmost awash--we are being--"

  In breathless silence they watched the pencil, poised above the paperwhile the operator listened tensely to the silent night.

  * * * * *

  Again his ear received the wild jumble of dots and dashes sent by afrenzied hand in that far-off room. His pencil automatically set downthe words. "Help--help--" it wrote before Thorpe's spellbound gaze,"the eyes--the eyes--it is attack--"

  And again the black night held only the rush and roar of torn waterswhere the destroyer raced quivering through the darkness. The message,as the waiting men well knew, would never be completed.

  "A derelict!" Robert Thorpe exclaimed with unconscious scorn. ButCaptain Brent was already at a communication tube.

  "Chief? Captain Brent. Give her everything you've got. Drive the_Bennington_ faster than she ever went before."

  The slim ship was a quivering lance of steel that threw itself throughfoaming waters, that shot with an endless, roaring surge of speedtoward that distant point in the heaving waste of the Pacific, andthat seemed, to the two silent men on the bridge, to put the draggingmiles behind them so slowly--so slowly.

  "Let me see those papers," said Captain Brent, finally.

  * * * * *

  He read them in silence.

  Then: "The eyes!" he said. "The eyes! That is what this other poordevil said. My God, Thorpe, what is it? What can it be? We're not allinsane."

  "I don't know what I expected to find," said Thorpe slowly. "I hadthought of many things, each wilder than the next. This CaptainWilkins said the eyes were above him. I had visions of some skymonster ... I had even thought of some strange aircraft from out inspace, perhaps, with round lights like eyes. I have picturedimpossibilities! But now--"

  "Yes," the other questioned, "now?"

  "There were tales in olden times of the Kraken," suggested Thorpe.

  "The Kraken!" the captain scoffed. "A mythical monster of the sea.Why, that was just a fable."

  "True," was the quiet reply, "that was just a fable. And one of thethings I have learned is how frequently there is a basis of factunderlying a fable. And, for that matter, how can we know there is nosuch monster, some relic of a Mesozoic species supposed to beextinct?"

  He stood motionless, staring far out ahead into the dark. And Brent,too, was silent. They seemed to try with unaided eyes to penetrate thedark miles ahead and see what their sane minds refused to accept.

  * * * * *

  It was still dark when the search-light's sweeping beam picked up theblack hull and broad, red-striped funnels of the _Nagasaki Maru_. Shewas riding high in the water, and her big bulk rolled and wallowed inthe trough of the great swells.r />
  The _Bennington_ swept in a swift circle about the helpless hulk whilethe lights played incessantly upon her decks. And the watching eyesstrained vainly for some signal to betoken life, for some sign thattheir mad race had not been quite vain. Her engines had been shutdown; there was no steerage-way for the _Nagasaki Maru_, and, from allthey could see, there were no human hands to drag at the levers of herwaiting engines nor to twirl with sure touch the deserted helm. The_Nagasaki Maru_ was abandoned.

  The lights held steadily upon her as the _Bennington_ came alongsideand a boat was swung out smartly in its davits. But Thorpe knew he wasnot alone in his wild surmise as to the cause of the catastrophe.

  "Throw your lights around the water occasionally," Brent ordered. "Letme know if you see anything."

  "Yes sir," said the man at the search-light. "I will report if I spotany survivors or boats."

  "Report anything you see," said Commander Brent curtly.

  "You go aboard if you want to," he suggested to Thorpe. "I will stayhere and be ready if you need help."

  Thorpe nodded with approval as the small boat pulled away in the dark,for there was activity apparent on the destroyer not warranted by amere rescue at sea. Gun-crews rushed to their stations; the tarpaulincovers were off of the guns, and their slender lengths gleamed wherethey covered the course of the boat.

  "Brent is ready," Thorpe admitted, "for anything."

  * * * * *

  They found the iron ladder against the ship's side, and a sailorsprang for it and made his way aboard. Thorpe was not the last to setfoot on deck, and he shuddered involuntarily at the eery silence heknew awaited them.

  It was the _Minnie R._ over again, as he expected, but with adifference. The sailing vessel, before he boarded it, had been forsome time exposed to the sun, while the _Nagasaki Maru_ had not. Andhere there were slimy trails still wet on the decks.

  He went first to the wireless room. He must know the final answer tothat interrupted message, and he found it in emptiness. No radio manwas waiting him there, nor even a body to show the loser of an unequalbattle. But there was blood on the door-jamb where a body--the man'sbody, Thorpe was sure--had been smashed against the wood. A wisp ofblack hair in the blood gave its mute evidence of the hopeless fight.And the slime, like the trails on the deck, smeared with odorousvileness the whole room.

  Thorpe went again to the deck, and, as on the other ship, he breatheddeeply to rid his lungs and nostrils of the abhorrent stench. Theensign in charge of the boarding party approached.

  "What kind of a rotten mess is this?" he demanded. "The ship is filthyand not a soul on board. Not a man of them, officers or crew, and theboats are all here. It's absolutely amazing, isn't it?"

  "No," Thorpe told him, "about what we expected. What do you make ofthis?" He touched with his foot a broad trail that shone wet in the_Bennington's_ lights.

  "The Lord knows," said the ensign in wonder. "It's all over and itsmells like a rotten dead fish. Well, we will be going back, sir." Hecalled to a petty officer to round up the men, and the boat wasbrought alongside.

  * * * * *

  Their return to the _Bennington_ again through a pathway of light thatThorpe knew was safe under the black muzzles of the destroyer's guns.

  Or was it, he asked himself. Safe! Was anything safe from thisdevilish mystery that could pluck each cowering human from the lowestdepths of this steel freighter, that could drag her down in the watertill the radio man sent his cry: "We are sinking!..."

  He told Brent quietly, after the ensign had reported, of the strugglesin the wireless room and its few remaining traces. And he watched withthe commander through the hour of darkness while the _Bennington_steamed in slow circles about the abandoned hulk, while hersearch-lights played endlessly over the empty waters and the men atthe guns cast wondering glances at their skipper who ordered suchstrange procedure when no danger was there.

  With daylight the scene lost its sense of mysterious threat, andThorpe was eager to return to the abandoned ship.

  "I might find something," he said, "some trace or indication of whatwe have to fight."

  "I must leave," said Commander Brent. "Oh, I'm coming back, neverfear," he added, at the look of dismay on Thorpe's face. The thoughtof leaving this mystery unsolved was more than that young seeker afteradventure could accept.

  "I'm coming back," Brent repeated. "I've been in communication withthe Admiral--Honolulu has relayed the messages through. All code, ofcourse; we mustn't alarm the whole Pacific with our nightmares. Theold man says to stick around and get the low-down on this damn thing."

  "Then why leave?" objected Thorpe.

  * * * * *

  "Because I am coming around to your way of thinking, Thorpe. Because Iam as certain as can be that we have a monster of some sort to dealwith ... and because I haven't any depth charges. I want to run up tothe supply station at Honolulu and get a couple of ash-cans of TNT tolay on top of the brute if we sight him."

  "Glory be!" said Thorpe fervently. "That sounds like business. Go andget your eggs and perhaps we can feed them to this devil--raw.... AndI think I'll stay here, if you will be back by dark."

  "Better not," the other objected; but Thorpe overruled him.

  "This thing attacks in the dark," he said. "I will lay a little bet onthat. It left the orang-outang on the _Minnie R._--quit at the firstsign of daylight. I will be safe through the day, and besides, thebeast has gutted this ship. It won't return, I imagine. And if I staythere for the day--live as they lived, the men who manned that ship--Imay have some information that will be of help when you get back. Butfor Heaven's sake, Brent, don't stop to pick any flowers on the way."

  "It's your funeral," said Brent not too cheerfully. "The old man saidto give you every assistance, and perhaps that includes helping youcommit suicide."

  But Robert Thorpe only laughed as Commander Brent gave his orders fora small boat to be lowered. A ship's lantern and rockets for nightsignals were taken at the officer's orders. "We'll be back beforedark," he said, "but take these as a precaution."

  One favor Thorpe asked--that the ship's carpenter go over with him andhelp him to make a strong-barred retreat of the wireless cabin.

  "And I'll talk to you occasionally," he told Brent. "I tried the keywhile I was aboard; the wireless is working on its batteries."

  He waved a cheery good-by as the small boat pulled away. "And hurryback," he called. The destroyer commander nodded an emphatic assent.

  * * * * *

  On board the _Nagasaki Maru_, Thorpe directed the carpenter and hishelpers in the work he wanted done. The man seemed to knowinstinctively where to put his hands on needed supplies, and theresult was a virtual cage of strong oak bars enclosing the wirelessroom, and braces of oak to bar the single door. Thorpe was notassuming any bravado in his feeling of safety, but he was doing whathe had done in many other tight corners, and he prepared his defencesin advance.

  These included weapons of offense as well. As the boat with thedestroyer's men pulled back to the _Bennington_, he placed in easyreach in a corner of the room a heavy calibered rifle he had takenfrom his belongings.

  And, still, with all his feeling of security, there was a strangedepression fell upon him when the _Bennington's_ narrow hull was smallupon the horizon, and then that, too, was gone and only the heavingswells and the wallowing hulk were his companions.

  Only these? He shivered slightly as he thought of that unseen watcherwith the devil-eyes whose presence Captain Wilkins had felt--and hismen, and the poor terrified ape! He deliberately put from his mind thethought of this; no use to start the day with morbid fears. He wentbelow to examine the cabins. But he carried the heavy elephant gunwith him wherever he went.

  * * * * *

  Below decks the signs of the marauder were everywhere, yet there waslittle to be learned. The slimy trails dried quickly a
nd vanished, butnot before Thorpe had traced them to the uttermost depths of the ship.

  There was not a nook or corner that had gone unsearched in thehorrible quest for human food. And one thing impressed itself forciblyupon the man's mind. He found a lantern, and he used it of necessityin his explorations, but this thing had gone through the dark and withunerring certainty had found its way to every victim.

  "Can it see in the dark?" Thorpe questioned. "Or...." He visioneddimly some denizen of the vast depths, living beyond the limits of thesun's penetration, far in the abysmal darkness where its only lightmust be self-made. But his mind failed in the attempt to picture whatmanner of horror this thing might be.

  Even in the hold its evil traces were found. There were tiers of metaldrums that still shone wet in his lantern's light. Calciumcarbide--for making acetylene, he supposed--marked "Made in U.S.A."The _Nagasaki_ must have been westward bound.

  * * * * *

  He went, after an hour or so, to the wireless room, and only when herelaxed in the safety of his improvised fortress did he realize howtense had been every nerve and muscle through his long search. Hetried the wireless and got an instant response from the destroyer.

  "Don't shoot it too fast," he spelled out slowly to the distantoperator: "I am only a dub. Just wanted to say hello and report allO.K."

  "Fine," was the steady, careful response. "We have had a littletrouble with our condensers--" There was a short pause, then themessage continued, this portion dictated by the commander. "Delay notimportant. We will be back as agreed. Have picked up _S. S. Adelaide_bound east in your latitude. Warned her to take northerly courseaccount derelict. See you later. Signed, Brent, commanding _U. S. S.Bennington_."

  The man in the barred room tapped off his acknowledgement and closedthe key. He suddenly realized he had had no breakfast, and the hourshad been slipping past. He took his gun again and went down to thegalley to prepare some coffee. It was not the time or place for anenjoyable meal, but he would have relished it more had he not picturedthe _Adelaide_ and her lovely owner steaming across these threateningseas.

  He knew the captain of the _Adelaide_. "Obstinate pigheaded oldScotchman!" "Hope he takes Brent's advice. Of course Brent couldn'ttell him the truth. We can't blat this wild yarn all over the air orthe passenger lines would have our scalps. But I wish the _Adelaide_was safe in Manila."

  * * * * *

  His explorations in the afternoon were half-hearted and perfunctory.There was nothing more to be learned. But he had seen in his mind somevague outline of what they must meet. He saw a something, mammoth,huge, that could grasp and hold an ocean freighter--against whosegreat body he had seen the waves dash in a line of white spray. Yet asomething that could force its way down narrow passages, could presswith terrific strength on bolted doors and crush them inward, wreckedand splintered. Some serpentine thing that felt and saw its way andcrawled so surely through the dark--found its prey--seized it--andcarried off a man as easily as it might a mouse.

  No octopus, no matter what proportions, filled the description. Hegave up trying to see too clearly the awful thing. And he kept awayfrom the ship's rail when once he had ventured near. For there hadcome to him a feeling of fear that had sent the waves of coldtrickling and prickling up his spine. Was there something reallythere?... A waiting lurking horror in the depths?

  "The eyes," he thought, "the eyes!..." And he went more quickly thanhe knew to his barred retreat where again he might breathe quietly.

  * * * * *

  The position of the deserted ship was south of the regular steamerlanes on the TransPacific run. Only a trace of smoke on the northernhorizon marked through the afternoon the passage of other craft. Itwas a long and lonely vigil for the waiting man. But the _Bennington_would return, and he listened in at intervals hoping to hear herfriendly signal.

  The batteries operating the _Nagasaki's_ wireless were none toostrong; Thorpe saved their strength, though he tried at times to raisethe _Bennington_ somewhere beyond his reach.

  The sun was touching the horizon when he got his first response. "Keepup the old nerve," admonished the slow, careful sending of the_Bennington's_ operator. "We have been delayed but we are on our way.Signed, Brent."

  The man in the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, andtried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extraclips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinkingsun, and he watched from within his cage the coming of the quick dark.

  The protecting glare of day must be unbearable to this monster fromthe lightless depths, and daylight was vanishing. Thorpe's mind wassearching for additional means of defense. He found it in the cargo hehad seen. The drums of carbide! He could scatter it on the deck--itreacted with water, and those slimy arms, if they came and touched it,could find the contact hot. He took his lantern and went hastily belowto stagger back with a drum upon his shoulder.

  In the half-light that was left him he forced the cover and thenrolled the drum about the swaying deck. The gray, earthly lumps ofcarbide formed erratic lines. Useless perhaps, he admitted, but thethreatening dark forced the man to use every means at his command.

  * * * * *

  He was scattering the contents of a second drum when he stiffenedabruptly to rigid attention.

  The ship, thrown broadside to the wide-spaced swells, had rolledendlessly with a monotonous motion. But now the deck beneath him wassteadying. It assumed an abnormal levelness. The boat rose and fellwith the waves, but it no longer rolled. There was something beneathholding, drawing on it.

  Thorpe knew in that frozen second what it meant. The drum clattered tothe rail as he dashed for his room. Gun in hand, he watched withstaring eyes where the deserted deck showed dim and vague in the lightof the stars and the bow of the ship was lost in the uncertain dark ofnight.

  Wide-eyed he watched into the blackness, and he listened withdesperate attention for some slightest sound beyond the splashing ofwaves and the creaking of spars.

  Far in the west a light appeared, to glow and vanish and glow again inthe tumbling waters. The _Bennington_! His heart leaped at thethought, then sank as he knew the destroyer's lights would not appearfrom that direction.

  Through a slow hour that seemed an eternity the oncoming ship drewnear, and he knew with a sudden, startling certainty that it was the_Adelaide_--and Ruth Allaire--coming on, through into the horrorawaiting.

  He leaned forward tensely as a sound reached his ears. A ghostly echoof a sound, like the softest of smooth, slipping fabric upon hardsteel. And as he listened, before his staring eyes, a something camebetween him and the lighted yacht.

  It wavered and swung in the darkness. It was formless, uncertain ofoutline, and it swung in the night out beyond the ship's rail till itsuddenly neared, waved high overhead, and the cold light of the starsshone in pale reflection from an enormous, staring eye.

  It surmounted a serpentine form that took shape in the dim radiancewithout and came lower in undulating folds to crash heavily upon thedeck.

  * * * * *

  Thorpe's hand was upon the wireless key. He had wanted to warn off theyacht, but not till the thud of the creature on the bare deck provedits reality could he force his cold fingers to press the key.

  Then, fast as his inexperience allowed, he called frantically for the_Adelaide_. He spelled her name, over and over.... Would the sleepyoperator never answer?

  The _Bennington_ broke in one. "Is that you, Thorpe? What is up?" theydemanded.

  But Thorpe kept up his slow spelling of the yacht's name. He must geta warning to them! Then he realized that the _Bennington_ could do itbetter.

  "_Bennington_," he called, "_Adelaide_ approaching. I am attacked.Warn them off. Warn them--" His frantic, hissing dots and dashes diedimmediately. Beneath his feet the _Nagasaki Maru_ was rolling again,swinging free to the lift and thrust of
the swells beneath.

  "Good God!" he shouted aloud in his lonely cabin. "It's gone for theyacht. _Adelaide_--turn north--full speed--" he clicked off on a slow,stuttering key. "Head north. You are being attacked!" He groaned againas he saw the _Adelaide's_ shining ports swing away from the safety ofthe north; the ship broached broadside to the waves and came slowly toa stop.

  "_Bennington_," he radioed. "Brent--it has got the _Adelaide_.Help--hurry! I am going over."

  He tore wildly at the barred door, and he made a dash across the deckto slip sprawling in a heap against the rail where the slimy traces ofthe recent visitor stretched glistening on the deck.

  * * * * *

  How he lowered the boat Thorpe never knew. But he knew there was onethat the men from the _Bennington_ had swung over the side, and toremadly at the tackle to let the boat crash miraculously upright intothe sea. He slung the rifle about his neck with a rope end--there werecartridges in his pocket--and he went down the dangling lines and castoff in a frenzy of haste.

  What could he do? He hardly dared form the question. Only this stoodclear and unanswerable in his mind: The yacht was in the monster'sgrip, and Ruth Allaire was there on board. Ruth Allaire, so smiling,so friendly, so lovable! Food for that horror from the depths.... Herowed with super-human strength to drive the heavy boat across thewave-swept distance that separated them.

  Between gasping breaths he turned at times to glance over his shoulderand correct his course. And now, as he drew near, he saw thoughindistinct the unmistakable, snakelike weaving of horrible tenuousfingers, rolling and groping about the yacht.

  They were plain as he drew alongside. The trim ship rose and fell withthe water, while over her side where Thorpe approached swung a long,white monstrous rope of flesh. It retreated like the lash of a whip,and the horrified watcher saw as it went the struggling figure of aman in the grasp of flabby lips. And above them a single eye glaredwickedly.

  Another vile, twisting arm rose from the afterdeck with a screamingfigure in its grasp and vanished into the water beyond the yacht.There were others writhing about the decks. Thorpe saw them as he madehis boat fast and clambered aboard.

  * * * * *

  A wave of reeking air enveloped him as he reached the deck; thenauseous stench from the monster's tentacles was horrible beyondendurance. He gagged and choked as the stifling breath entered hislungs.

  A huge rope of slippery, throbbing flesh stretched its twisted lengthtoward the stern. It contracted as he watched into bulging muscularrings and withdrew from the afterdeck. The deadly end of it stopped inmid-air not twenty feet from where he stood. The jawlike pincers on itheld the limp form of an officer in its sucking grip, while above, ina protuberance like a gnarled horn, a great eye glared into Thorpe'swith devilish hatred.

  The beak opened sharply to drop its unconscious burden upon the deck,and the watching man, petrified with horror, saw within the gaping mawgreat sucking discs and beyond them a brilliant glow. The wholecavernous pit was aflame with phosphorescent light. Dimly he knew thatthis light explained the ability of the beastly arms to grope sosurely in the dark.

  The eye narrowed as the gaping, fleshy jaws distended, and RobertThorpe, in a flash that galvanized him to action, was aware that hisfight for life was on. He fired blindly from the hip, and the recoilof the heavy gun almost tore it from his hands. But he knew he hadaimed true, and the toothless, seeking jaws whipped in agony back intothe sea.

  There were other arms whose eyes were searching the stern of theyacht. Thorpe plunged frenziedly down a companionway for the cabin heknew was Ruth Allaire's. Was he in time? Could he save her if he foundher? His mind was in a turmoil of half-formed plans as he rushed madlydown the corridor to find the body of the girl a limp huddle acrossthe threshold of her cabin.

  * * * * *

  She was alive; he knew it as he swung her soft body across oneshoulder and staggered with his burden up the stairs. If he could onlybreathe! His throat was tight and strangling with the reekingputrescence in the air. And before his eyes was a picture of thestrong oak bars of his own retreat. Somehow, some way, he must getback to the abandoned ship.

  An eye detected him as he came on deck, and he dropped the limp bodyof the girl at his feet as he swung his rifle toward the glowing lightwithin the opening jaws. The sucking discs cupped and wrinkled indread readiness in the fleshy, toothless opening. He emptied themagazine into the head, though he knew this was only a feeler and afeeder for a still more horrible mouth in the monstrous body that roseand fell tremendously in the dark waters beyond. But it was typical ofRobert Thorpe that even in the horror and frenzy of the moment herammed another clip of cartridges into his rifle before he stooped toagain raise the prostrate figure of Ruth Allaire.

  The forward deck for the moment was clear; it rose high with theweight of the writhing, twisting arms that weighed down the stern ofthe yacht where the crew had taken refuge.

  To think of helping them was worse than folly--he dismissed thethought as another great eye came over the rail. Once more he used thegun, then lowered the girl to the waiting boat, and cast off and rowedwith the stealthiest of strokes into the dark.

  * * * * *

  Behind him were whipping points of light above the white brilliance ofthe yacht _Adelaide_. The boat was tossing in great waves that camefrom beyond, where a body, incredibly huge, was tearing the waters tofoam. There were ghostly arms that shone in slimy wetness, that lashedsearchingly in all directions, as the monster gave vent to its fury atThorpe's attack. There were screaming human figures grasped in many ofthe jaws, and the man was glad with a great thankfulness that thegirl's stupor could save her from the frightful sight.

  He dared to row now, and his breath was coming in great choking sobsof sheer exhaustion when at last he pulled the senseless form of RuthAllaire to the deck of the _Nagasaki_ and drew her within the frailshelter of the wireless room.

  Stout had the oaken bars appeared, and safe his refuge in thebarricaded room, but that was before he had seen in horrible realitythe fearful fury of this monster from the deep. He placed the bracesagainst the door and turned with hopeless haste to seize the wirelesskey.

  "_Bennington_," he called, and the answer came strong and clear."Where are you.... Help--" His fingers froze upon the key and theanswering message in his ears was unheeded as he watched across thewater the destruction of the yacht.

  This craft that had dared to resist the onset of the brute, to fightagainst it, to wound it, was feeling the full fury of the monster'srage. The gleaming lights of the doomed ship were waving lines thatswept to and fro in the grip of those monstrous arms. The boat beneathThorpe's feet was tossing in the waves that told of the titanicstruggle. He had meant to look south for some sign of the oncomingdestroyer, but in fearful fascination he stared spellbound where themasts of the trim yacht swept downward into the waves, where the greenof her star-board lantern glowed faintly for an instant, thenvanished, to leave only the darkness and the starlit sea.

  * * * * *

  A voice aroused him from his stupefaction. "Where am I ... where amI?" Ruth Allaire was asking in a frightened whisper. "That terriblething--" She shuddered violently as memory returned to show again thehorror she had witnessed. "Where are we, Robert? And the_Adelaide_--where is it?"

  Thorpe turned slowly. The insane turmoil of the past hour had numbedhis brain, stunned him.

  "The _Adelaide_--" he mumbled, and groped fumblingly for coherentthoughts. He stared at the girl. She was half-risen from the floorwhere he had laid her, and the sight of her quivering face broughtreason again to his mind. He knelt tenderly beside her and raised herin his arms.

  "Where is the yacht?" she repeated. "The _Adelaide_?"

  "Gone," Thorpe told her. "Lost!" A thought struck him.

  "Was your father on board, Ruth?"

  Ruth was dazed.

  "Lost
," she repeated. "The _Adelaide_--lost!... No," she added inbelated response to Thorpe's question. "Daddy was not there. But themen--Captain MacPherson ... that horrible monster...." She buried herface in her hands as she realized what Thorpe's silence meant.

  He held the trembling figure close as the girl whispered: "Where arewe, Robert? Are we safe?"

  "We may win through yet," he told her through grim, set lips. Herealized abruptly that he was seeing the face of Ruth Allaire in thelight. He had left a lantern burning! He withdrew his arms from abouther and sprang quickly to his feet to put out the tell-tale light. Indarkness and quiet was their only safety. And he knew as he sprangthat he had waited too long. A soft body crashed heavily on the deckoutside.

  * * * * *

  The girl's voice was shrill with terror as she began a question.Thorpe's hand pressed upon her lips in the dark where he stoodwaiting--waiting.

  A luminous something was glowing outside the cabin. It searched andprodded about the deserted deck to whip upward at the audible hiss ofwet carbide. Another appeared; the rifle came slowly to the man'sshoulder as a pair of jaws gaped glowingly beyond the windows and aneye stared unblinkingly from its hornlike sheath. It crashed madlyagainst the walls of the wireless room to shatter the glass and makekindling of the woodwork of the sash. Thorpe fired once and againbefore the specter vanished, and he knew with sickening certainty thatthe wounds were only messages to some central brain that would sendother ravening tentacles against them. But the oak bars had held.

  He reached in the brief interval for the key, and he sent out onefinal call for help. He strained his ears against the head-set forsome friendly human word of hope.

  "--rocket," the wireless man was saying. "Fire rockets. We can'tfind--" A swift, writhing arm wrapped crushingly about the cabin asthe message ceased.

  * * * * *

  Thorpe seized his rifle and fired into the gray mass that bulged withterrible muscular contractions through the window. He fired again toaim lengthways of the arm and inflict as damaging a wound as hisweapon would permit.

  The arm relaxed, but a score of others took up the attack. Again thesickening stench was about them as gaping jaws gleamed fiery beneaththe hateful eyes and tore at the flimsy structure. Thorpe jammed morecartridges into the gun and fired again and again, then dropped theweapon to fumble for the rockets that Brent had given him.

  He lighted one with trembling fingers; the first ball shot straightinto a waiting mouth. Another ignited a searing flame of acetlylenegas where a wet arm writhed in the hot carbide trail. The man leanedfar out through the broken window.

  No time to look around. He let the red flares stream upward high intothe air, then dropped the rocket hissing on the deck to seize oncemore the rifle.

  A mass of muscle crashed against the door; it went to splinters underthe impact, and only the two oak bars remained to hold in check thehorrible tentacles and the darting heads. One mouth closed to apointed end that forced its way between the bars. The oak gave underthe strain as Robert Thorpe pulled vainly at an empty gun. Beside himrose shrieks of terror as the monstrous thing came on, and Thorpe beatwith frantic fury with his clubbed rifle at the fleshy snout.

  He knew as he swung the weapon that the shrieks had ceased, thensmiled grimly in the numbing horror as he realized that Ruth Allairewas beside him. A piece of oak was in her hands, and she was strikingwith desperate and silent fury at the slimy flesh.

  * * * * *

  It was the end, Thorpe knew, and suddenly he was glad. The nightmarewas over, and the end was coming with this girl beside him. But RobertThorpe was fighting on to the last, and he tried to make his blowsreach outward to the hateful devilish eye.

  He saw it plainly now, for the deck was a glare of white light. He sawthe eye and the thick arm behind it and the score of others that madea heaving, knotted mass were brilliant and wetly shining. He could seenow how best to strike, and he turned his gun to thrust with thebarrel at the eye.

  It withdrew before his stroke--the jaws slid backward to the deck.There were sounds that hammered at his ears. "The guns! The guns!" agirl was screaming. Across the deck, where a search-light played,huge arms were lashing backward toward the sea. The waves beyond hadvanished where a monstrous body shone wetly black in a blinding glare.

  And the man hung panting, helpless, on the one remaining bar acrossthe doorway to look where, beyond, her forward guns a spitting streamof staccato flashes, the _Bennington_ tore the waves to high-thrownspray. Her four clean funnels swung far over as the slim ship, withher stabbing, crashing guns, swung in a sweeping circle to bear downupon the black bulk slowly sinking in the search-light's glare.

  The vast body had vanished as the destroyer shot like one of her ownprojectiles over the spot where the beast had lain. And then, whereshe had passed, the sea arose in a heaving mound. The big ship beneaththe watching man shuddered again as another depth charge grumbled itschallenge to the master of the deeps.

  * * * * *

  The warship went careening on an arc to return and throw the fullglare of her search-lights on the scene. They lighted a vast sea,strangely stilled. An oily smoothness leveled waves and ironed themout to show more clearly the convulsions of a torn mass that roseslowly into sight.

  Thorpe in some way found himself outside the cabin. And he knew thatthe girl was again beside him as he stared and stared at what thewaters held. A bloated serpent form beyond believing was struggling inthe greasy swell. Its waving tentacles again were flung aloft inimpotent fury, and, beneath them, where their thick ends jointed thebody, a head with one horrible eye rose into the air. A thick-lippedmouth gaped open, and the gleam of molars shone white in the blindingglare.

  The twisting body shuddered throughout its vast bulk, and the wavingarms and futile staring eyes dropped helpless into the splashing sea.Again the revolting head was raised as the destroyer sent a rain ofshells into its fearful mass. Once more the oily seas were calm. Theyclosed over the whirling vortex where a denizen of the lightlessdepths was returning to those distant, subterranean caverns--returningas food for what other voracious monsters might still exist.

  The man's arm was about the figure of the girl, trembling anew in afresh reaction from the horror they had escaped, when a small boatdrew alongside.

  "They're safe," a hoarse voice bellowed back to the destroyer, and aman came monkeywise up a rope where Thorpe had launched his boat.

  And now, as one in a dream, Thorpe allowed the girl to be taken fromhim, to be lowered to the waiting boat. He clambered down himself andin silence was rowed across to the destroyer.

  "Thank God!" said Brent, as he met them at the rail. "You're safe, oldman ... and Miss Allaire ... both of you! You let off that rocket justin time; we couldn't pick you up with our light--

  "And now," he added, "we're going back; back to San Diego. The Admiralwants a word of mouth report."

  Thorpe stilled him with a heavy gesture. "Give Ruth an opiate," hesaid dully. "Let her forget ... forget!... Good God, can we everforget--" He stumbled forward, heedless of Brent's arm across hisshoulders as the surgeon took the girl in charge.

  * * * * *

  Admiral Struthers, U.S.N., leaned back from his desk and blew a cloudof smoke thoughtfully toward the ceiling. He looked silently fromThorpe to Commander Brent.

  "If either one of you had come to me with such a report," he saidfinally, "I would have found it incredible; I would have thought youwere entirely insane, or trying some wild hoax."

  "I wish it were a damn lie," said Thorpe quietly. "I wish I didn'thave to believe it." There were new lines about the young-old eyes,lines that spoke what the lips would not confess of sleepless nightsand the impress of a picture he could not erase.

  "Well, we have kept it out of the papers," said the Admiral. "Said it was aderelict, and the wild messages floating about were from an inexperiencedman, frig
htened and irresponsible. Bad advertising--very--for the passengerlines."

  "Quite," Commander Brent agreed, "but of course Mr. Thorpe may want touse this in his next book of travel. He has earned the right withoutdoubt."

  "No," said Thorpe emphatically. "No! I told you, Brent, there wasoften a factual basis for fables--remember? Well, we have proved that.But sometimes it is best to leave the fables just fables. I think youwill agree." A light step sounded in the corridor beyond. "Nothing ofthis to Miss Allaire," he said sharply.

  The men rose as Ruth Allaire entered the room. "We were justspeaking," said the Admiral with an engaging smile beneath hisclose-cut mustache, "of the matter of a bet. Mr. Thorpe has wonhandily, and he has taught me a lesson."

  He took a check book from his desk. "What charity would you like toname, Miss Allaire? That was left to you, you remember."

  "Some seamen's home," said Ruth Allaire gravely. "You will know best,if you two are really serious about that silly bet."

  "That bet, my dear," said Robert Thorpe with smiling eyes, "was veryserious ... and it has had most serious consequences." He turned tothe waiting men and extended a hand in farewell.

  "We are going to Europe, Ruth and I," he told them. "Just ramblingaround a bit. Our honeymoon, you know. Look us up if you're cruisingout that way."