in a pool of his own
perspiration. The octopi craft kept doggedly after the _NX-1_, no
matter how often and effectually the sweating cook's reckless hands
prevented her getting the heat ray home.

For a long time the two ships continued to race up and down. The
_NX-1_ would plunge, pirouette around the other, and scamper away
towards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsake
her course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in romping
circles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled navigator pulled
his levers and turned his wheels in a frantic effort to get somewhere.

To get somewhere! Yes--but where?

"Oh, Mr. Wells, where are you?" the harried cook would bleat at
intervals.

Or, plaintively: "Now, what the hell's _this_ thing for?"

CHAPTER IX

_At Bay_

Fourteen humans stood at bay on the cold sea-floor, dazed by the
ruthless stroke of ill-luck which had taken the _NX-1_ from where they
had left it.

"It's gone," whispered Graham over and over in a hopeless tone. Keith
tried to pull himself together. He had to think of his men.

In a second, his whole plan, which had seemed to be approaching
success so rapidly, was smashed by the disappearance of the submarine.
Mechanically he kept his helmet-light playing into the ever-thickening
eyes and tentacles around him, while he scanned the sea-floor nearby.
It was filling more closely than ever with the black, writhing forms
of the cuttlefish. The rays still held them back, but their great bulk
loomed over the small party of humans like a sinister storm cloud.
Soon, in their overwhelming mass, they would crush down, and the
submarine's crew be conquered by sheer force of numbers.

"Look!" Keith cried. "There's where she was lying!"

He pointed out on the floor of the square a deep groove, obviously
made by the hull of the _NX-1_. Its length and jaggedness seemed to
denote that the submarine had tried to bore into the bed of the cavern
itself. Wells was mystified. If the octopi-ship had towed her away,
she would certainly not have gouged that deep scar on the sea
bottom....

But he dismissed the strange disappearance from his mind. He had to
work out a plan of action.

"Keep together, men, and follow that scar!" he ordered tersely.
"There's a chance that the _NX-1's_ somewhere further along!"

It was a futile hope, he knew--but there was nothing else. The tiny
group, centered in the inverted bowl of black, writhing tenta