ine! Stick close; keep your arms locked; and
watch out above!"

The circle of men narrowed. The rays gave their tiny cluster the
appearance of a monster even more fantastic than those moiling around
them--a monster with long straight tentacles of glaring white. They
stumbled forward through the magically parting ranks of black octopi.
The beams kept the creatures back; they were helpless before them.

Foot by foot under the inverted bowl of threshing tentacles the
_NX-1's_ crew lumbered ahead. The street at last ceased; the wide
square opened before them.

"We're here!" Wells yelled exultantly. "This is the--"

His voice fell into abrupt silence. He stared around the square, and
his heart went cold indeed. They had reached the right place, but it
was empty.

The _NX-1_ was not there!

CHAPTER VIII

_Cook, the Navigator_

Through all these hours, one man had remained on the _NX-1_, and that
man was, to put it mildly, scared to death.

Cook Angus McKegnie had been nearest the connecting ladder when Keith
Wells roared out the command to retreat above, and his desire to
regain a place of safety was so earnest that he made the control room
in record time. At once he had felt the tingle of the paralyzing ray.
Struck by a horrible thought, he ventured to peer down the ladder--and
groaned to see the figures of his comrades, all lying limply on the
deck. His portly frame quivered like jelly as realization came to him
that he was the only one who had escaped the ray.

Heroic ideas of saving the submarine, of rescuing the men below,
flashed wildly through his head. But only for a moment. On second
thought, he felt he ought to hide. So, in the tomblike silence that
had fallen, the two-hundred-and-twenty-pound McKegnie wormed a way
behind an instrument panel, effecting the journey by vigorous shoves
of his stomach. It was minutes later that he first noticed that some
sharp jutting object was jutting deep into his ample paunch, but he
could do nothing to remedy it. He was hidden, anyway, and he was going
to stay hidden!

The cook felt the _NX-1_ being towed forward. Then, after a dreadful
wait, he heard queer noises down below, and was positive the exit
ports had opened. The snakelike slithering and shuffling which
followed would mean that the enemy was inside the _NX-1._ The thought
brought St. Vitus' dance to his limbs, and, try as he might, he
couldn't still them. Then again the ports opened, the gloomy silence
r