* * * * *

Of the twenty-one survivors of the _Peary's_ officers and crew, only a
dozen had the will to watch the inexorable advance of the sealmen. The
rest lay in various attitudes on the deck of the rear compartment,
showing no sign of life save torturous, shallow pantings for air and,
occasionally, spasmodic clutchings at their throats and chests, as
they tried to fight off the deadly, invisible foe that was slowly
strangling them.

Ken Torrance, Sallorsen, the scientist, Lawson, and a few others were
pressed together at the last watertight door, peering through the
quarsteel at the sea-creatures' systematic assault on the door leading
into the third compartment. A straight, hard smash at it; another
final splintering smash--and again the torpoon pushed through in the
van of a cascade of icy, greenish water, which quickly claimed the
control compartment for the attackers behind. The creatures were
growing bolder. More and more of them had entered the submarine, and
soon each open compartment was filled from deck to ceiling with the
slowly turning, graceful brown bodies, inspecting minutely the
countless wheels and levers and gauges, and inspecting also, in
turns, the pale, worn faces that stared with dull eyes at them
through the sole remaining door.

There was no further retreat, now. Behind was only water and the swarm
that passed to and fro through it. Water and sealmen--ahead, above, to
the sides, behind--everywhere. Cooped in their transparent cell, the
crew of the submarine _Peary_ waited the end.

* * * * *

Once more, as well as he could with his throbbing head and heavy,
choking body, Kenneth Torrance tracked over the old road that had
brought him nowhere, but was the only road open. Carefully he took
stock of everything he had that he might possibly fight with.

There were sea-suits for the men, and in each suit an hour's supply of
artificial but invigorating air. Two port-locks, one on each side of
the stern compartment. A torpoon, with a gun and nineteen shells.
Nothing else? There seemed to be, in his mind, a vague memory of
something else ... something that might possibly be of use ...
something.... But he could not remember. Again and again the agony of
slow strangulation he was going through drove everything but the
consciousness of pain from his shirking mind. But there was something
else--and perhaps it was the key. Perhaps if he could o