nd you?" asked the girl.
"I escaped from Oo-oh," replied Bradley. "I have accomplished the
impossible once, and so I shall accomplish it again--I shall escape
from Caspak."
He was not looking at her face as he answered her, and so he did not
see the shadow of sorrow that crossed her countenance. When he raised
his eyes again, she was smiling.
"What you wish, I wish," said the girl.
Southward along the coast they made their way following the beach,
where the walking was best, but always keeping close enough to trees to
insure sanctuary from the beasts and reptiles that so often menaced
them. It was late in the afternoon when the girl suddenly seized
Bradley's arm and pointed straight ahead along the shore. "What is
that?" she whispered. "What strange reptile is it?"
Bradley looked in the direction her slim forefinger indicated. He
rubbed his eyes and looked again, and then he seized her wrist and drew
her quickly behind a clump of bushes.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It is the most frightful reptile that the waters of the world have
ever known," he replied. "It is a German U-boat!"
An expression of amazement and understanding lighted her features. "It
is the thing of which you told me," she exclaimed, "--the thing that
swims under the water and carries men in its belly!"
"It is," replied Bradley.
"Then why do you hide from it?" asked the girl. "You said that now it
belonged to your friends."
"Many months have passed since I knew what was going on among my
friends," he replied. "I cannot know what has befallen them. They
should have been gone from here in this vessel long since, and so I
cannot understand why it is still here. I am going to investigate
first before I show myself. When I left, there were more Germans on
the U-33 than there were men of my own party at the fort, and I have
had sufficient experience of Germans to know that they will bear
watching--if they have not been properly watched since I left."
Making their way through a fringe of wood that grew a few yards inland
the two crept unseen toward the U-boat which lay moored to the shore at
a point which Bradley now recognized as being near the oil-pool north
of Dinosaur. As close as possible to the vessel they halted, crouching
low among the dense vegetation, and watched the boat for signs of human
life about it. The hatches were closed--no one could be seen or heard.
For five minutes Bradley watched, and then he determ
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