cles,
lumbered onward.

* * * * *

Then the octopi struck with another weapon, in an effort to dull the
spearing beams of white. Here and there from the mass of black an even
blacker cloud began to emerge. It quickly settled over the whole
scene, pervading it with a pitchy, clinging darkness that obscured
each man from his neighbor.

"Ink!" cried one of them. It was sepia from the cuttlefish's ink
sacs--the weapon with which these monsters of the underseas blind and
confuse their victims.

"Faster!" the commander roared in answer. "And for heaven's sake, keep
together!"

They huddled closer. Under the protecting cloud of ink the mass of
octopi pressed nearer. The struggle became fantastic, unreal, as the
brilliant beams of white bored through the utter blackness searching
for eyes which the men knew were there, yet could not see until their
rays chanced upon them. Snaky shadows milled horribly close to the
little group of bulging yellow figures. Blacker and blacker grew the
water; they could not always see the monsters as they drove them back
on each side. Now and then a bold tentacle actually touched one of
them for a moment before its owner was thrust, blinded, away.

Suddenly the dark cloud cleared a little as the fight moved into an
unseen current. Their range of vision lengthened to ten or twelve
feet; they could dimly sense the looming mass of cuttlefish: and it
was less often that one of the monsters darted forward, daring the
rays of white, and became altogether visible. When this did happen,
half a dozen dazzling beams converged on the octopus' eyes and drove
it back in writhing agony.

The men were the hub of a grotesque cartwheel, whose spokes were
inter-crossing rays of white. They still forged onward along the
groove, but moved more slowly now, and Keith Wells, tired to death,
realized the combat could not go on much longer. Their advance was
useless; a mere jest. The _NX-1_ had vanished. It would only be a
question of time before their batteries gave out, or the swarms of
octopi crushed in on the struggling crew. Their overwhelming numbers
would tell in the end.... The men were silent, except for the
occasional gasps which came from their laboring lungs.

* * * * *

And then the king of the octopi appeared.

Keith had been wondering, in the aching turmoil that was his brain,
where the gold-banded monarch was. He knew the monster ha