ocked tightly together, the whole fourteen of them shot like a bullet
to the living ceiling of unsuspecting cuttlefish above.

They hit with a terrific crash. Keith was momentarily stunned by the
force of impact. He felt himself torn away from his men, felt a dozen
tentacles snake over him, and mechanically stabbed out with his
helmet-light. For a moment he was held; then the air and his light
pulled him through, and he broke out through the top.

In his rocketing upward progress the extra oxygen rapidly cleared his
mind. Glancing below he saw a great, dark, many-fingered cloud
dropping rapidly away, and was glad to know that the octopi could not
follow him into the lesser pressures above without their suits. Over
the dark cloud he glimpsed a few scattered pin-points of light--the
helmet-beams of the other men. They were rising as swiftly as he.

"Thank God!" he murmured reverently. "We broke through! We broke
through!"

CHAPTER X

_The Return of the Wanderer_

Wells watched the several helmet-lights shooting upwards and wondered
if they represented all the men that had got safely through the net of
tentacles. Remembering the rocky ceiling they were rapidly
approaching, he ordered the others to reduce speed by discharging air
from their sea-suits. He received no articulate answer.

Although he cut down the rush of his own progress, it was with a jar
that he bounded into the top of the cavern. As he dangled there, he
beheld four light beams hurtling upward; his earphones registered
crash after crash: and then he saw the beams go spinning down into the
gloom again, weaving and crossing fantastically, the shock having
jerked them from their owner's hands. Keith had lost his own
helmet-light below, but peering around he could make out a few vague
forms, bumping and twisting in the current.

"Graham!" the commander called. "Graham, you there?" After a moment
his first officer's voice came thickly back.

"Yes--here. A bit groggy. That crash...." Wells swam clumsily towards
him.

"I guess only a few of us broke through," the commander said slowly.
As the two officers hung at the roof, swinging grotesquely, one by one
the other men came to their senses and reported their presence in the
radiophone. Keith ordered them to cluster around him, and soon eight
weird figures had grouped nearby. After a while they located two
others, which brought their total to ten men and two officers. They
looked a long time, but coul