A quick turn through a cleft-like entrance brought them into it. The
room was only a fraction of the size of the central meeting place, and
its light, from but several of the light-fish, was dim and vague, barely
enabling Ken to see what looked like a pile of rocks in the chamber,
heaping upwards. The ceiling was flat and strangely blurred, a rippling
veil. As he wondered what caused this, his guards lifted him rapidly
towards it, up alongside the rocks.

Not only towards it, but through it! His head-casque pierced through;
rivulets of water gurgled off it--and he realized that the blurred veil
he had seen was the top plane of the water, which only filled
three-quarters of the cavern.

Surprise left him breathless. At first he could see nothing, could only
feel that his shoulders were above water. Then he was pushed slowly
upward until he rested almost completely above the surface. How did the
cavern come to be but part-filled with water? he wondered. And was this
dim emptiness around him air? Could he breathe it?

Then he was vaguely aware of a presence on the top of the rock heap. He
sensed rather than heard a stir of movement. Then suddenly a ray of
light stabbed through the darkness and impinged on his
head-casque--white, electric, man-made light!

And there came to his ears, muffled by the suit and distorted by echoes,
a call that sounded like his own name!

"Ken! Is it you, Ken?"

Bewildered, he motioned the blinding light to one side. It turned upward
and backward, and in its glare a face suddenly appeared out of the
darkness.

"Good God!" Kenneth Torrance cried.

It was a pale, drawn face, stubbled with beard, and its eyes were wild.

It was the face of Chanley Beddoes, the lost second torpooner of the
_Narwhal_.

* * * * *

Ken stared, his body rigid. Chan Beddoes! The dead brought back! So it
at first seemed. And here, in a cavern of the blubber-men!

He pulled himself further up on the rock pile, unfastened the clasps on
his helmet and took it off--for Beddoes wore none, and that meant the
space was filled with breathable air.

"Chan!" he said. "And we were sure you were dead!"

A high-pitched, hysterical voice cried in answer!

"It's you, Ken! They got you too! Oh, but it's good to see you! It's
been so lonely, so dark.... You are there, Ken? I'm not just dreaming
again?"

Ken realized that the other's nerves were shot, and he replied gently:

"You're not dr