y was able to understand what had been greatly puzzling him--how
it was that the creature had come to be inside the ship at all; it was
evidently through these breaches in the bulkheads that it had made its
way; and, just prior to the moment of his seizure, the sailor had caught
a momentary shuddering glimpse of something in the cuddy that went far
to explain why it had made its way there.

That the octopus had some definite objective now became perfectly clear,
for it still kept untiringly on its way, forcing its passage this way
and that, through the interstices between a confused heap of bales and
cases that had formed a part of the ship's cargo, until at length, after
about half an hour's arduous work, it emerged, clear of everything, into
open water, when it at once made for a cave-like aperture in the reef,
into which it passed, still firmly clasping its prisoner in the embrace
of its snake-like tentacles.

And now Mildmay began to realise the serious character of the
extraordinary plight in which he thus unexpectedly found himself
involved. For it now flashed upon him that, in the astonishment
following upon his seizure, he had failed to raise any outcry, with the
object of making his friends acquainted with his predicament; indeed, he
had been so fully occupied in struggling to free himself from the
fettering embrace of his enemy that it had not occurred to him to cry
out until it had become altogether too late to make his voice heard; and
he now found himself thrust, how deep he knew not, into this submarine
cave, but certainly much too far for his voice to reach those outside
and bring them to his assistance. And, meanwhile, the octopus still
held him in so tenacious a grip that he found it absolutely impossible
to free his hands and so get at his two-bladed, electric dagger, with
which, as he believed, he could make short work of his antagonist;
indeed, every time that he made the slightest attempt to move his limbs,
he felt the tentacles still further strengthen their grip upon him. And
now that he had time to think of it, he became conscious of the fact
that he was feeling pretty completely exhausted by his previous
struggles and the extreme violence with which he had been dragged hither
and thither in his passage from the wrecked ship's cuddy to the cave.
He was bruised and aching in every joint of his body, and was,
furthermore, suffering severely from cramp due to the constraint upon
his limbs.

Ho