thus, the days, weeks, and months went
by. Events had slipped beyond my control. I had embarked on a journalistic
enterprise, and now that purpose was entirely out of my reach.

Up the valley Dr. Schermerhorn and his assistant were engaged in some
experiment of whose very nature I was still ignorant. Also I was
likely to remain so. The precautions taken against interference by
the men were equally effective against me. As if that were not enough,
any move of investigation on my part would be radically misinterpreted,
and to my own danger, by the men. I might as well have been in London.

However, as to my first purpose in this adventure I had evolved
another plan, and therefore was content. I made up my mind that on
the voyage home, if nothing prevented, I would tell my story to Percy
Darrow, and throw myself on his mercy. The results of the experiment
would probably by then be ready for the public, and there was no
reason, as far as I could see, why I should not get the "scoop" at
first hand.

Certainly my sincerity would be without question; and I hoped that
two years or more of service such as I had rendered would tickle Dr.
Schermerhorn's sense of his own importance. So adequate did this plan
seem, that I gave up thought on the subject.

My whole life now lay on the shores. I was not again permitted to
board the _Laughing Lass_. Captain Selover I saw twice at a
distance. Both times he seemed to be rather uncertain. The men did
not remark it. The days went by. I relapsed into that state so well
known to you all, when one seems caught in the meshes of a dream existence
which has had no beginning and which is destined never to have an end.

We were to hunt seals, and fish, and pry bivalves from the rocks at
low tide, and build fires, and talk, and alternate between suspicion
and security, between the danger of sedition and the insanity of men
without defined purpose, world without end forever.

XII

"OLD SCRUBS" COMES ASHORE

The inevitable happened. One noon Pulz looked up from his labour of
pulling the whiskers from the evil-smelling masks.

"How many of these damn things we got?" he inquired.

"About three hunder' and fifty," Thrackles replied.

"Well, we've got enough for me. I'm sick of this job. It stinks."

They looked at each other. I could see the disgust rising in their
eyes, the reek of rotten blubber expanding their nostrils. With one
accord they cast aside the masks.

"It ain't s