Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1919 — THE DEEP SEA PERIL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE DEEP SEA PERIL

By VICTOR ROUSSEAU

(Copyright by W.

CHAPTER Vlll.—Continued. *—-10— “Now, my plan is this: We must leave the airlock one by one, with rather a light weight of metal on our feet, calculated to enable'us to walk, and yet not to keep us down. We ahall then simply climb the slopes of Fair island under the water." “I think it is the only feasible plan, tir,” said Davies briskly. “How do yon feel about it. Ida?" isked Donald a low tone. Ida put her hand into his. “I am ready to do anything you wish. Donild, dear,” she answered. *TII answer for the lady with my jwn life, sir,” said Clouts heartily. “Then we're decided.” said Donald. *Now, follow me in single file, hands jn the shoulders of the one in front jf you. All ready?” He led the way through the darkless, down the ladder at the base of the conning tower toward the storage room in which the diving apparatus was kept. Then he lit a candle. _ The Siebert apparatus possesses the merit of simplicity. Donald, as he adjusted it on each with the aid of Davies, did not think it necessary to rxplain the mechanism. It consisted, irst, of a waterproof uniform, then of i glass mask and copper cylinder, the latter covering the upper part of the >ody and fastening about the shoulJers. It contained a supply of compressed oxygen for several hours. The iarbonic acid exhaled passed into a receptacle containing caustic soda, which purified it, thus liberating the ixygen, while the nitrogen could be Inhaled over and over again. There was also a single sleeve atlached by wires to a little storage battery worn - on the neck, in which, when the apparatus had been properly adjusted, a small electric light could be made to burn by the pressure of a jutton. They waited a moment while Ida put on the waterproof uniform; then all followed suit. Donald and Davies iressed themselves after Clouts, and attached the weights about the feet as each and -to their own. Finally, when all were in readiness, Donald snuffed the candle and lit his electric tamp, which was inclosed in a specially devised glass, calculated to resist a peat pressure. Each of the party was now sealed from all sound. They saw each other's faces very dimly through the glass masks. Donald indicated to Davies that he was to bring up the rear, his hands upon the shoulders of Sam Clouts in front of him. He placed Ida in front of Clouts, and, raising her hands, put them upon his own shoulders, himself heading the procession. He made iris way into the conning tower again. He opened the inner chamber of the airlock, admitting Ida snd himself, and closed it again. He knew that Clouts and Davies could take care of themselves. , The airlock, built to be used for escape in just such an emergency, was meant for one temporary tenant alone. But two could just manage to squeeze In. and Ida could not have undertaken the plunge alone. They were breathing the stored oxygen within the copper cylinders. They were safe for the. present. The transit was not especially perilous in itself, but there were dangers to sac possibility of being too heavily weighted and-sinking into the ooze; that of being too light and .losing balance. These had to be met. Through the glass mask Donalfl saw Ida’s face! She was composed, and, in spite of the distorting medium, he was sure that he saw a look of trustful love in her eyes. He started the' compressed-air apparatus to keep the sea -water-out of thelock, and opened the outer door. They looked into the nothingness of the ocean bottom. The wall of inky water was hardly illumined by the faint light that shone from their sleeve-lamps. Donald pressed Ida's hand. He felt tier fingers Hutter in his. She understood what she was to do. She placed her head and shoulders within the aperture. v Donald raised her feet and pushed her into the sea. He saw the night of water swallow her. And, choking down his fears, he plunged in after her. ; CHAPTER IX. On the Sea Floor. He struggled for balance as the sea depths enveloped him. He groped la the water as in a fog. The swirl of bubbling air from the oxygen apparatus in the lock carried him some distance from the subrriarine, and then he felt himself sinking. He sank very slowly, and as he sank he,groped for Ida. He could not find her. The submarine had disappeared completely. _ TRe waded to and fro clumsily. He .WAS like a dead man who wakes in an uninhabited purgatory of desolation. There was nothing anywhere—nothing. Only the yielding water, at which his fingers clutched fruitlessly. He began to walk for. six paces in

every direction, calculating that in this way he could bound a parallelogram and return to his starting point. But he saw nothing, and lib did not know that he had returned to the place from which he had set out. He started wildly backward, believing that the submarine lay behind him. As he walked. dragging his weight like a convict’s chain arid ball, suddenly the outlines of the F 55 appeared before him. ' ' He realized that she was lying with her bow higher than" her stern. At once he grasped the situation. She had sunk with her bow toward land, and from this end, therefore, he must start on the ascent of Fair island’s subterranean base. And this discovery renewed hfs courage. Of course, the others were endeavoring to make the ascent, while he hail gone floundering in the wrong direction, dbwnward toward the heart of the crater. He made his parallel with the submarine's bow, keeping well within sight of the elusive craft, which would disappear momentarily before his byes and suddenly appear again, almost within arm’s reach. .Suddenly he stopped. He stared at the oozy floor. His light had cast his shadow in front of him. But that was impossible. It was no shadow. It was a flattened man, a dwarfish figure, ridiculously misproportioned, resembling an image seen in a curved mirror. It approached slowly and uncertainly. For a moment Donald felt his heart stand still with fear. It was a nightmare ■figure, terror incarnate. A little glowflashed from its arm. They drew together. ~Tliey _^fbo3 — lbokfng - 5T _ peering through their thick masks.

But in that vague medium recognition was impossible. Donald saw only the blurred features behind the thick glass that covered the face, distorted and twisted by the refraction. He surmised that it was not Davies. Davies could have made himself known by any of a number of symbols of the seaman’s freemasonry. But then, it could not be Clouts either. He caught at the figure’s hand and raised it to his sleeve-light. It was a woman’s hand —it was Ida’s. They knew each other. Donald took her fingers in his, and together they started on the ascent. To his horror, Donald perceived that the water was becoming opaque. It presaged the appearance of the sea monsters. They were in this lair, and this substance was no food, no plankton that thftse devils pushed forth before them like a veil, but a material designed to shield them from the filtering sunlight. Donald grasped Ida’s hand and fought his way through the clinging mpss. As he swung his free arm, upraised, it struck against a rocky barrier overhead. The ooze underfoot had yielded to solid rock. He thrust out his arms on either side, and still found rock. He realized that they were no longer ascending the mountain, but had struck a eave, Donald stood still, reflecting. Did Ida understand? There was no way iin which to tell her;He was about to retrace is steps when he perceived, a long distance in front of him, a tiny glimmer of light. At first he hoped that it was daylight. But 4 that was impossible. Ida raised her hand and • pointed. She, too, had seen it; and had placed the same interpretation, upon it At every step the light grew clearer. It was not stationary, but swung to and fro slowly from side to side, rising and falling, yet seeming to retreat slowly as they advanced. Donald strained his eyes through the mask, expecting every moment to see the form 9f one of his comrades. The light stood stilb immediately in front of them, upon a level with Don-

aid’s eyes. He leaned forward, put out his hand toward It. Suddenly Ida leaped backward, dragging him violently with her. There was a sense of sound, or vibration, rather, like the closing of a trap’s jaws. They seemed to snap together hardly a foot from Donald’s head. And he saw suddenly, as if it had at that moment only become visible, the shadowy form of some vast monster lurking within the recesses of the cave. It was one of the giant forms of deep-sea life, perhaps holding the same relationship toward,the sea beasts as tigers do toward men. It might have followed the swarm when they assembled in the submarine crater, preparatory to their emigration southward. It was not one of the monsters that had attacked the boat, for Donald could discern a fishlike body and a huge head with gleaming eyes, and a pair of hinged jaws that gaped wide as if to search for the prey that had eluded them. The light was a phosphorescent lure used by the creature to draw its victims- within the cavern in which it lurked. The sluggish monster remained quiescent, and again the lure appeared, dangling between the jaws from the snout above them. ' Donald pushed Ida before him and fled out of the cave until he trod upon the ocean ooze again. And they continued to crawl at the bottom of the sea, two helpless human creatures, unbelievably helpless, while around them the fierce, predatory swarms sought their diurnal food. Donald had found the slope of the island when the water began to grow thick again. Presently a phosphorescent patch appeared in the distance. It became less hazy, it seemed to concentrate. The ocean suddenly became like transparent jelly. . And, facing him, Donald saw the outline of one of the sea monsters, visible now and horribly magnified. The eyes opened upon his own. They were not currantlike in that medium, but expanded to the full, great orbs like sunflowers that glowered on their prospective prey, larger thats the eyes of any beast created since leviathan and behemoth. . However, the creature made no move toward him as Donald, almost paralyzed, remained confronting it. He saw the gorilla form, with its short, budding limbs, the trunk of gorilla’s thickness, the narrow flippers, and the triangular head. He felt as some primeval man might have done when he looked into the face of the mastodon. The creature did not pursue him, but stood, swaying gently • dreadfully human. . Donald snatched at Ida and tried to run. He tripped and fell. He dragged himself to his feet again. He became aware of a barrier between the monster and himself, which had, perhaps, saved them. He had stumbled upon a spiny substance, a coralloid growth that proved to be the outpost of a submarine forest. It was a field of crinoids, the yellow lilies of the sea. Beautiful plants with branching arms, they bent and swayed before Donald’s eyes as they drew in the minute forms of life on which they sub-, sisted. They were vegetable octopods, carnivorous scavengers of the deep, which feasted on the small fish that they entangled in their waving branches, and drew by the ciliary movements of the lining of their tentacles toward the central stomach. Donald saw one of the waving arms sweep down toward hims He tore at it with his fingers. To his surprise, the brittle branch broke loose and settled slowly in the ooze, there to become the embryo of a plant. From every quarter the tentacles, as if apprized of their presence, came swooping slowly toward them. Donald saw Ida grasped in their clinging clutch. Madly he tore at the graceful, shrinking forms, until he had cloven a wide swath before him, arid the arms, balked and baffled of their prey, withdrew. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

He Struggled for Balance as the Sea Depths Enveloped Him.