ve never had to make a speech in my life, and I'd
hate like hell to start now."

It was petty officer Caldwell who started the chant. He started it, and
the men took it up until it was coming from all of them in a
full-throated roar.

I'm a tough, true-hearted skyman,
Careless and all that, d'ye see?
Never at fate a railer,
What is time or tide to me?

All must die when fate shall will it,
I can never die but once,
I'm a tough, true-hearted skyman;
He who fears death is a dunce.

Lawton squared his shoulders. With a crew like that nothing could stop
him! Ah, his energies were surging high. The deliriant weed held no
terrors for him now. They were stout-hearted lads and he'd go to hell
with them cheerfully, if need be.

It wasn't easy to wait. The next half hour was filled with a steadily
mounting tension as Lawton moved like a young tornado about the ship,
issuing orders and seeing that each man was at his post.

"Steady, Jimmy. The way to fight a deliriant is to keep your mind on a
set task. Keep sweating, lad."

"Harry, that winch needs tightening. We can't afford to miss a trick."

"Yeah, it will come suddenly. We've got to get the rotaries started the
instant the bottom drops out."

He was with the captain and Slashaway in the control room when it came.
There was a sudden, grinding jolt, and the captain's desk started moving
toward the quartz port, carrying Lawton with it.

"Holy Jiminy cricket," exclaimed Slashaway.

The deck tilted sharply; then righted itself. A sudden gush of clear,
cold air came through the ventilation valves as the triple rotaries
started up with a roar.

Lawton and the captain reached the quartz port simultaneously. Shoulder
to shoulder they stood staring down at the storm-tossed Atlantic,
electrified by what they saw.

Floating on the waves far beneath them was an undulating mass of
vegetation, its surface flecked with glinting foam. As it rose and fell
in waning sunlight a tainted seepage spread about it, defiling the clean
surface of the sea.

But it wasn't the floating mass which drew a gasp from Forrester, and
caused Lawton's scalp to prickle. Crawling slowly across that
Sargasso-like island of noxious vegetation was a huge, elongated shape
which bore a nauseous resemblance to a mottled garden slug.

Forrester was trembling visibly when he turned from the quartz port.

"God, Dave, that would have been the _last straw_. Animal