THE COMING OF THE GREAT FISH-LIZARD.
“HEAVEN grant they may return in safety!” muttered the engineer as his
two friends vanished amid the fungi.
For a while after their departure he amused himself by gazing at
the weird and glistening growths ashore; but ere long he grew tired of
the monotonous gleam of the things.
They were so uncanny, so spectral in their splendour.
Securely fastening the turret door, he went below, determined to
give his beloved engines a thorough clean.
Although to an unpractised eye the gleaming cranks and levers
appeared spotless, the engineer found sufficient to occupy his
attention for three hours, ascending at intervals during this period
to the turret to assure himself that all was well.
Only when the engines glistened like burnished silver did Wilson
cease his efforts; then, cleansing his grimy hands, he returned to the
wheelhouse, to await the return of his comrades.
Little did he think what the future held in store for him; little
he dreamed of the perils through which he was to pass ere he saw his
friends again!
Slowly the hours dragged by, and there came no sign from the
absent ones, and no sound broke the appalling, death-like silence of
the underworld.
Once Wilson thought he heard a faint explosion, but the sound was
too indistinct for him to judge with any certainty.
Within the boat and without all was silent as the grave.
To the lad’s excited imagination even the homely interior of the
_Seal_ seemed to partake of the ghostly character of her
surroundings. Every plate in the vessel he knew, every bolt had been
adjusted under his own supervision, yet he found himself continually
fancying that queer noises came from below.
The eternal ticking of the saloon clock seemed to intensify the
unnatural stillness. He craved for some noise--anything, he cared
not what--as thirsty men crave for water, yet no sound came to
him.
At length, unable to bear the strain longer, he flung open the
door, and stepped out on to the deck.
For some time he paced to and fro, the ring of his boots upon the
steel plates sounding cheerily in his ears.
Then suddenly he paused in his stride, and glanced sharply
astern.
One hundred yards away a strange, rippling eddy appeared on the
swell of the heaving water.
Remembering that the attack of the octopus had been heralded in
like fashion, Wilson bolted into the turret and closed the door. A
moment later, with face pressed against the glass, he was watching
eagerly for developments.
“If it’s another squid,” he muttered, “I’m afraid he’s a trifle
too late. That ripple gives the show away. By Jove! he’s keeping it
up,” looking with surprise at the violently eddying water.
Still the water boiled and hissed and foamed, racing round in an
ever-increasing circle.
Then, “Great Heaven!” burst from the lips of the engineer.
“Ichthyosaurus!”
Up in the midst of the eddy, with a rush and a swirl, appeared a
monstrous reptile. Never before had the engineer seen aught to equal
the thing; yet instinctively he knew what the creature was, recognised
it in an instant as the great fish-lizard, that old inhabitant of the
prehistoric seas.
Full two hundred feet the reptile was in length, and its body was
covered with great, overlapping, scaly plates. The gaping jaws
revealed a double row of yellow fangs, and its monstrous eyes glowed
like moons, as the brute fixed them curiously upon the motionless
vessel.
So for a few minutes it remained.
Then, in a flash, its curiosity turned to furious rage as it
noted an unfortunate movement of Wilson’s. But for that the creature
might have departed as it had come, silently and peaceably.
Its four mighty paddles churned the already racing water into a
mass of froth as, snorting furiously, it swept down upon the
_Seal._
Just for a moment the lad stood petrified. The suddenness of the
thing, and, above all, the fearful size of the attacker held him
spellbound.
He realised only too well the need for instant action if the
_Seal_ were to be saved, yet his trembling limbs refused to obey
the prompting of his brain.
But to him came the recollection of his friends’ dependence upon
the vessel; if she were destroyed his absent comrades were lost!
The thought gave him strength.
With a bound he leapt to the stairhead, and darted down to the
engine-room. Thrusting over the lever to the last notch, he dashed
back again into the wheelhouse, just as the _Seal,_ straining
under the full power of her engines, snapped her mooring cable like a
cotton thread and sped seaward.
Past the raging reptile she flashed like a meteor, and for a few
moments the engineer’s heart bounded with hope that the giant brute
would not give chase.
But not so easily was the ichthyosaurus shaken off. With a sweep
of his tail he turned and swung after the flying vessel.
Fast as the submarine was travelling, it soon became evident that
the reptile could travel faster. With a few powerful strokes he drew
alongside, and his mighty teeth snapped within an inch of the vessel’s
rail, Wilson turning the _Seal_ only just in time to avert
disaster.
This temporary failure appeared to increase the reptile’s rage,
and he swept forward again like a flash of light.
Four walls of green, foam-capped water poured from his thrashing
paddles, and washed clear over the submarine’s deck.
The monster’s tail, swinging, rising, and falling, lashed the
water with strokes that rang like the reports of guns.
Something must be done, and that quickly, Wilson thought. But
what? That was the question.
If that swinging tail once smote the _Seal,_ her course
would be ended on the instant. Stout as were her plates, they could
not stand a blow of that sort. Glancing desperately about him, the
engineer’s eye fell upon Seymour’s elephant gun.
It was a forlorn hope, yet, in his desperate plight, he
determined to try a shot with the great weapon.
Giving a turn to the wheel, to alter the course of the vessel, he
locked it, then took down the gun.
It was loaded, for, since the octopus’s attack, Seymour had
insisted on its being kept ready for action; so, opening the door
cautiously, Wilson stepped out. The rush of water, knee-deep, almost
swept him off his feet, but, bracing himself against the wheelhouse,
he raised his weapon and aimed carefully at one of the moonlike eyes
of his pursuer.
_Bang!_ The kick of the great gun almost dislocated the
lad’s shoulder, but the pain of this was as nothing compared to his
chagrin when he found that he had missed.
The terrific speed of the vessel and of her mighty enemy made
aiming exceedingly difficult, and, added to this, the elephant gun was
a weapon to which Wilson was entirely unaccustomed.
Once more he raised it to his shoulder, and fired the second
barrel.
This time the shell struck the reptile’s head, but glanced off
the gleaming scales without exploding.
“The brute must be made of steel,” the engineer muttered savagely
as he retired, disheartened by his failure. As the net result of his
effort he had succeeded in still further enraging his huge opponent,
and had badly bruised his own shoulder.
The floor of the turret was awash when he entered, but he cared
little for a discomfort of so trivial a character.
The peril of the moment completely dispelled all other thoughts
from his mind. As he once more grasped the wheel-spokes, a half-formed
resolution came over him--that, if he and the _Seal_ were to
be destroyed, the great reptile should perish with them.
He had partly turned the submarine for the purpose of ramming his
terrible enemy, when a filmy wisp of vapour drifted across the
deck.
He looked up quickly.
A moment later a vast cloud of blinding mist rolled down upon the
vessel, blotting out the surface of the water and enveloping pursued
and pursuer in a thick white veil.
“Thank God!” the engineer cried fervently, as the _Seal_
raced on into the friendly shelter of the mist.
Gradually the sound of the reptile’s paddles grew fainter. Like a
hunted hare the submarine twisted and doubled, ever drawing away from
her monstrous foe; yet, even when all sound of the brute had ceased,
Wilson still held on, determined not to fall foul again of the peril
he had so narrowly escaped.
But now danger arose from another source.
The _Seal’s_ excessive speed made travelling within the
enveloping mist highly dangerous. Each moment the engineer expected
some obstruction to loom before him--a rocky island, perhaps,
upon which the submarine would dash blindly and shiver herself to
fragments.
Dared he leave the _Seal_ to her own devices for a few
seconds, and slip below to slow the engines? He asked himself the
question over and over again, ere he summed up courage to loose the
wheel-spokes and make a quick dash for the engine-room.
Quick as thought he pulled back the lever, almost to its
resting-place, then raced to the stairs.
As he reached them there came a grating jar which shook the
vessel, and, with a crash that jerked him off his feet, the
_Seal_ came to a standstill.
Somewhat bruised by his fall, the engineer rose, and, retracing
his steps, entirely stopped the engines, after which he betook himself
once more to the turret, anxious to know the full extent of the
accident.
It was as he thought. He had slowed the engines a few moments too
late, and the vessel, racing madly forward by her own momentum, had
piled herself high and dry upon a shingly beach.
This much Wilson could discover by leaning over the rail, but the
mist was still too dense to allow him to make out the character of his
surroundings.
Whether he was anywhere near the spot from which he had started
he could not tell; but, realising that he could do nothing until the
mist lifted, he prepared himself some food and made a hearty meal.
As the hours went by, and there came no sign of the thinning of
the cloudy veil around, the engineer grew anxious.
What if his friends returned while he was still absent?
Naturally, after his promise they would instantly believe that the
vessel had been destroyed in some manner, and perhaps would leave the
beach, never to return.
The thought maddened him, and he had just determined to make an
effort to get the _Seal_ afloat again without waiting for the
lifting of the mist when, as suddenly as it had come, the cloud rolled
upward and vanished.
Then the full extent of his misfortune became apparent to the
engineer. The submarine had grounded for almost her entire length, and
it needed but a glance to tell him that her re-floating would be a
matter of great difficulty, if, indeed, it could be managed at
all.
By the character of the ground around Wilson surmised that he
must be far from his starting-place, and this afterwards proved to be
the case.
Before him lay a stretch of stony beach, perhaps one hundred
yards in width, and beyond that rose a towering wall of cliffs,
looming grim and gaunt through the twilight.
The engineer’s first movement was to start the engines at full
speed astern; but, though the propellers whirled madly, the vessel
remained motionless, and it became apparent that, despite his wish to
be moving, Wilson would have to wait for the turn of the tide ere
making any effort to once more float the _Seal._
Part of the time Wilson passed in making an examination of his
craft, both inside and out, and glad indeed was he to find that she
had sustained but little damage, and that only of a minor
character.
All too slowly the water rose, the incoming waves lapping the
submarine’s hull playfully as they danced and shivered in the rays of
the searchlight.
At intervals the engineer tried the engines, and at last, after a
long wait, the water rose high enough to answer his purpose.
A tremor passed through the vessel; her propellers churned and
thrashed; she bumped, rolled, then slid gently off the beach.
“Hurrah!” shouted Wilson, and flung up his cap. The _Seal_
was afloat once more. Over the rolling waves she flew at full speed,
the engineer’s one thought being to regain the beach from which the
attack of the great ichthyosaurus had driven him.
Two hours later, after a long search, Wilson found himself back
at the old mooring-place. Securely fastening the vessel, he stepped
ashore to stretch his limbs.
As he paced backward and forward across the beach, he wondered
whether his friends had returned from their expedition during his
absence.
Suddenly, as he turned to go on board again, he noticed something
gleaming in the sand, almost at his feet.
Stooping, he picked the shining object up. It was the baronet’s
revolver! The truth burst upon him in a flash.
“So they came back,” he muttered, “while I was away, for I know
Seymour took this with him when he went off the second time.”
Gloomy and depressed beyond measure by the discovery, he stepped
across the gangway. Then an idea struck him. Perhaps his friends were
still within hearing!
On the impulse of the moment he snatched down a rifle from the
rack and fired it into the air.
But no answering report came back to him. Again and again he
fired, but with no better result, and at length he gave up in
despair.
Then suddenly the silence was broken by a hideous clamour of
wolfish howls. Distant though they were, the cries almost froze the
blood in Wilson’s veins, so full were they of deadly menace.
Louder they grew, and it soon became evident to the engineer that
the creatures who uttered them were advancing towards the
_Seal._
He was hesitating whether to cast off the mooring-rope or not
when, out of the jungle, some three hundred yards from the vessel,
burst a number of figures.
Straight for the vessel they made, one in advance seeming to be
pursued by the others.
In a flash comprehension came to Wilson. Snatching up the
magazine rifle he had but just laid down, he bounded through the
doorway, crossed the deck at a leap, and sprang ashore.
As he did so the runner in advance raised his head, and a cry
trembled from his lips.
“For God’s sake, fire, Wilson!”
“Garth!” the engineer cried, then raised his weapon.