_The Return of the Wanderer_
Wells watched the several helmet-lights shooting upwards and wondered
if they represented all the men that had got safely through the net of
tentacles. Remembering the rocky ceiling they were rapidly
approaching, he ordered the others to reduce speed by discharging air
from their sea-suits. He received no articulate answer.
Although he cut down the rush of his own progress, it was with a jar
that he bounded into the top of the cavern. As he dangled there, he
beheld four light beams hurtling upward; his earphones registered
crash after crash: and then he saw the beams go spinning down into the
gloom again, weaving and crossing fantastically, the shock having
jerked them from their owner's hands. Keith had lost his own
helmet-light below, but peering around he could make out a few vague
forms, bumping and twisting in the current.
"Graham!" the commander called. "Graham, you there?" After a moment
his first officer's voice came thickly back.
"Yes--here. A bit groggy. That crash...." Wells swam clumsily towards
him.
"I guess only a few of us broke through," the commander said slowly.
As the two officers hung at the roof, swinging grotesquely, one by one
the other men came to their senses and reported their presence in the
radiophone. Keith ordered them to cluster around him, and soon eight
weird figures had grouped nearby. After a while they located two
others, which brought their total to ten men and two officers. They
looked a long time, but could not find any more. Two were gone.
* * * * *
Deep silence fell over the tiny group. The dark mass of the rocky
ceiling scraped their helmets; below, the bluish waters tapered into a
thick gloom, hiding, miles beneath, the mound-buildings and swarming
octopi.
One of the men spoke. His words were audible to everyone, and they
voiced the thought in every brain:
"What're we going to do now?"
Keith had no answer. They had escaped the immediate danger, but it was
only a temporary respite. The commander knew it was hopeless to try
and locate the tunnel leading to the outer sea, for they were very
tired, and in their clumsy suits they would be able to swim only a few
rods. Their helmet-lights were gone; they had played their last card.
"They're goin' to find us after a while," the pessimistic voice
continued. "They'll send that submarine of theirs after us--or maybe
they'll come up in their metal suits...."
"Well," Keith replied with forced cheerfulness, "then we'll have to
fight 'em off."
"Why not rip our suits an' end it now--" began another, but Graham's
voice cut in sharply.
"Quiet!" he said. "I heard something!"
The men stilled abruptly. In tense silence their ears strained at the
headphones. Wells asked: "What did you hear?"
"Wait!" Graham interrupted, listening intently. "There it is again!
Listen! Can't you hear it? Why, it sounded like--like--"
Keith concentrated his whole mind on listening, but could catch
nothing at all. He was just about to give up when he caught a faint,
jumbled murmur--the murmur of a human voice.
"My God!" he whispered. The voice, little by little, grew, and Wells
could distinguish words. They formed into a complete sentence. Keith
heard it plainly. It was:
"Now, what the hell's this thing for?"
* * * * *
Unmistakably, it was the voice of Cook Angus McKegnie, whom they all
had thought dead.
Amazed, the men of the crew started to jabber. "Quiet!" Wells ordered
sharply. He listened again. McKegnie's voice was growing quickly and
steadily louder.
"McKegnie!" the commander cried excitedly. "McKegnie, can you hear
me?" There was no answer. Patiently Wells waited a minute, every
second of which increased the volume of his long-lost cook's
bewildered tones. Again he tried.
"McKegnie! Can you hear me? This is Commander Wells. McKegnie!"
The cook's stammering voice came back:
"Why--why--is that you, Mr. Wells? Did I hear you, Mr. Wells?"
"Yes!" Keith shouted impatiently. "This is Commander Wells! For
heaven's sake, McKegnie, where are you?"
"I don't know, sir!" the cook responded. "Where are you?"
Keith was for the moment perplexed. "But--but, are you a prisoner?" he
questioned. And he could have sworn he heard a distinct note of pride
as the invisible McKegnie replied: "Oh, no, sir! Not yet! These devils
been tryin' their best to get me, but they couldn't! No, sir!"
Wells became more and more puzzled. "Then--but--you're not running the
_NX-1_, are you?"
McKegnie's voice was much louder now, and growing every second. The
note of pride persisted. "Of course, sir!" he confirmed. "It was kind
of hard at first, with these octopises botherin' me, but I got onto it
pretty quick. That octopis ship chased me with them heat rays for a
long time, but I ain't seen them lately. I guess I kinda tired them
out."
* * * * *
His last words grew louder with a rush, and from the dark depths
beneath a long shape suddenly appeared, hurtling up at the group of
astounded men in a zoom that bade fair to take it straight through the
ceiling. It was the _NX-1_.
"Dive, man, dive!" Keith yelled. "Cook, pull that black-handled lever
towards you! Yank it back! Yank it back! Quick!" He sighed with relief
as he saw his madly-driven submarine pause, whip its nose downward,
and crash back for the depths from which it had come.
The commander spoke rapidly. "McKegnie, listen: Leave the black lever
halfway, so you'll level out. Straighten your helm. We're only a
little above you; come round in a circle till I tell you to stop."
The _NX-1_ came out of her dive, and, as the cook evidently shoved her
helm over, went skirting around in a wide, drunken circle, some
thousand feet below her regular crew.
"All right!" Keith shouted. The fear that the octopi submarine would
dart back before he could get aboard his ship was looming in his mind.
"You're at the helm, Cook; there's a wheel right over your head. Spin
it around--oh, my God, there you go again!" He groaned while the
_NX-1_ went swooping off on a repetition of her crazy circle.
"Sorry, sir," the culinary navigator said thickly. "I guess I got the
wrong thing."
"Now!" Wells roared. "Spin that wheel above your head.... That's
right--right--there! Don't touch a thing, Cook! We're coming down."
The submarine had paused directly beneath them, listing slightly to
port. Then began the cautious business of the descent. Under Wells'
rapid orders the men linked arms again and discharged more air from
their sea-suits. Slowly, thin chains of bubbles rising behind them,
they sank towards the dim shape of the _NX-1_ below. Wells' eyes kept
probing the thick gloom far beneath. Every moment he expected to see
it disgorge a swarm of octopi.
They neared the submarine, and saw numberless pitted spots in her
body, where the heat ray had stabbed for a moment. In their excitement
they missed their level by some feet, but clutching together they
admitted more air and soon rose even with the starboard exit port.
"Swim forward," Keith ordered. "Hurry!" The weird figures groped
clumsily, and very slowly neared the port. The commander, in the van,
at last reached out and gripped its jutting external controls. He
could not work them at first: his hands were numb and awkward.
As he tugged and struggled with them a shout rang in his headphone. It
was McKegnie, scared to death.
"Oh, hurry, Mr. Wells!" he yelled. "Quick! Quick, please! The octopis
ship's comin', sir! The red light's back!"