air of
killer sharks swoop down on the band, and the quick, deadly accuracy
with which both men and woman met the attack. One man, older than the
rest, was injured before the sharks were vanquished, and when their
efforts to staunch his wounds proved unavailing, they left him there and
moved on. And as they left I saw a dim, crawling shape move closer,
throw out a long, whiplike tentacle, and wrap the body in a hungry
embrace.

They came to and passed other communities of beings like themselves, and
a city of their own, in much the way that Mercer had visualized it.

Fading, the scene changed to the interior of the coral house again. The
old man finished his story, and moved off into a cubicle in the rear of
the place. Dimly, I could see there a low couch, piled high with soft
marine growths. Then the scene shifted once more.

A man and a woman hurried up and down the narrow streets of the strange
city the girl had pictured when she showed us how she had met with the
shark, and struck her head, so that for a long period she lost
consciousness and was washed ashore.

* * * * *

Others, after a time, joined them in their search, which spread out to
the floor of the ocean, away from the dwellings. One party came to the
gaunt skeleton of the ancient wreck, and found the scattered,
fresh-picked bones of the shark the girl had killed. The man and the
woman came up, and I looked closely into their faces. The woman's
features were torn with grief; the man's lips were set tight with
suffering. Here, it was easy to guess, were the mother and the father of
the girl.

A milling mass of white forms shot through the water in every direction,
searching. It seemed that they were about to give up the search when
suddenly, from out of the watery gloom, there shot a slim white
figure--the girl!

Straight to the mother and father she came, gripping the shoulder of
each with frantic joy. They returned the caress, the crowd gathered
around them, listening to her story as they moved slowly, happily,
towards the distant city.

Instead of a picture, I was conscious then of a sound, like a single
pleading word repeated softly, as though someone said "Please! Please!
Please!" over and over again. The sound was not at all like the English
word. It was a soft, musical beat, like the distant stroke of a mellow
gong, but it had all the pleading quality of the word it seemed to bring
to mind.

I looked down