elf, and dropping the pike pole, I
grabbed him by the collar and braced myself. Something was pulling him
away from me, but I managed to get his head out, and he spluttered:

"'Help! Holdt on to me. Something haf my right foot.'

"'Lend a hand here,' I yelled to the men, and a few joined me, grabbing
him by his clothing. Together we pulled against the invisible force,
and finally all of us went backward, professor and all, nearly to drown
ourselves before regaining our feet. Then, as the agitated water
smoothed, I distinctly saw the mass of red move slowly forward and
disappear in the darkness under the forecastle deck.

"'You were right, mine friend,' said the professor, who, in spite of
his experience, held his nerve. 'Dere is something invisible in der
water--something dangerous, something which violates all laws of
physics und optics. Oh, mine foot, how it hurts!'

"'Get aft,' I answered, 'and find out what ails it. And you fellows,' I
added to the men, 'keep away from the forecastle deck. Whatever it is,
it has gone under it.'

"Then I grabbed the pike pole again, cautiously hooked the barb into
the dead man's clothing, and, assisted by the men, pulled him aft to
the poop, where the professor had preceded, and was examining his
ankle. There was a big, red wale around it, in the middle of which was
a huge blood blister. He pricked it with his knife, then rearranged his
stocking and joined us as we lifted the body.

"'Great God, sir!' exclaimed big Bill, the bosun. 'Is that Frank? I
wouldn't know him.'

"Frank, the dead man, had been strong, robust, and full-blooded. But he
bore no resemblance to his living self. He lay there, shrunken,
shortened, and changed, a look of agony on his emaciated face, and his
hands clenched--not extended like those of one drowned.

"'I thought drowned men swelled up,' ventured one of the men.

"'He was not drowned,' said Herr Smidt. 'He was sucked dry, like a
lemon. Perhaps in his whole body there is not an ounce of blood, nor
lymph, nor fluid of any kind.'

"I secured an iron belaying pin, tucked it inside his shirt, and we
hove him overboard at once; for, in the presence of this horror, we
were not in the mood for a burial service. There we were, eleven men on
a water-logged hulk, adrift on a heaving, greasy sea, with a dark-red
sun showing through a muddy sky above, and an invisible _thing_ forward
that might seize any of us at any moment it chose, in the water or out;
fo