They Found Atlantis

'Oh God,' murmured Sally, 'you've certainly thought of everything.'

He favoured her for a second with the bleak smile which 99

never lit his eyes. 'I hope so—now Duchess will you sign here.'

Camilla took up the pen and scrawled her signature.

'Now witnesses,' Kate glanced round. 'Will you oblige us, Captain McKay?'

'Not me!' rapped out the McKay. 'I'll see you to blazes first.'

'An unnecessary rudeness, Captain. It seems that vinegar has mingled with the salt which makes the old sea dog so crusty eh? But I have a liking for brave men and you're a V.C. they tell me so I'll excuse you. Doctor you will not refuse I know.'

Doctor Tisch rose to his feet without a murmur. He saw no reason why he should suffer the ignominy of having the part he had played exposed now, to no purpose.

When the Doctor had signed his name 'Kate' looked round again and his glance fell on Sally.

'It's no good asking me,' she said firmly.

'I had no intention of doing so,' he replied tartly. 'You cannot witness this will because you are a beneficiary under it. Which brings me to a further point that I must mention. The Duchess' fortune is so very large that I felt I could afford to be generous. Despite my remarks a little time ago it was not my intention to leave her entirely penniless and, as she could hardly inherit a sum under her own will, it occurred to me that if I increased the amount of fifty thousand, which you were down for, to one hundred thousand dollars, it would enable you to make some provision for her when you return from your official "travels". They may be a little long I fear as you are accompanying the others to the Falklands but it was for that reason your name alone of the party is not to appear among those of the dead. Captain Ardow will you sign as the second witness please.'

As Captain Ardow took the pen Camilla looked at the man who was robbing her of her fortune in such a calm businesslike manner, with new interest. 'Well, I must say that was decent of you,' she exclaimed in some surprise.

'No. That one of you at least should officially escape the "accident" gives additional plausibility to the whole scheme. However, I am happy to be able to arrange it in this way from an inherent dislike for seeing a woman of my own class on her uppers—engendered by this rag, I suppose.'

Once more he fingered the 'old school tie', then picked up the will and gave a final look round him.

'Slinger, Captain Ardow, men, you will come on deck with me to receive your final instructions. Ladies and gentlemen, all things considered you have given me very little trouble— far less than I anticipated—I am grateful to you. Goodnight!'

As his compact broad-shouldered figure was hidden from view by the little crowd of his associates who hurried from the lounge after him Sally suddenly sat back and gave way to shrieks of hysterical laughter.

'I see nothing to laugh at,' said the McKay grimly.

'Don't you—oh don't you?' Sally rocked helplessly from side to side. 'Wouldn't you laugh if you'd just been left a hundred thousand dollars?'

Captives in Conference

It was a silent and gloomy party which met some hours later for luncheon. Camilla and her friends had all been roused from their sleep at a little after three that morning; sustained nearly two hours of tense emotion in which fear, anger, and distress had been uppermost, while Oxford Kate unfolded his intentions to them; then crept miserably back to their beds round about five. They had slept therefore, with the exception of the McKay who had freshened himself up by ten minutes noisy splashing in the swimming pool and lain for an hour baking what he was pleased to term 'the imperial carcass' a shade more golden brown.

While the stewards were present there was a natural disinclination to discuss the situation, so conversation became strained to such an absurdly forced degree that after a few fatuous remarks about the excellence of the weather all further attempts were abandoned and Camilla told the steward to switch on the radio.

Slinger's chair remained empty, so it looked as if their principal gaoler did not intend to inflict his presence on them, but meant to take his meals in future with his confederate, the bleak-faced taciturn Captain Ardow. That at least was a relief, particularly to Count Axel and the McKay to both of whom it had occurred that if he put in an appearance they would have their work cut out in preventing Prince Vladimir from murdering him. Moreover, his absence enabled them to break into a free discussion of their plight immediately coffee had been served and the two stewards left the dining-room.

'Well,' said Camilla acidly, 'how do all my champions feel this morning?'

'I am ashamed quite,' declared Vladimir sadly. 'One fellow I broke only with the smashing fist. Then I was sprung upon too much.'

'Not you, my dear,' Camilla laid her hand gently upon his. 'I was enquiring after all these other heroes. A pretty picture they made last night.'

'Yes, yes,' Vladimir nodded quickly. 'We are five men. If all of us had broken one of these bandits where would they be now perhaps. After, we would have together minced up the other three—for they are eight only.'

'My dear Prince, you seem to have forgotten "Oxford Kate" himself—and Slinger—and Captain Ardow—and his crew,' the McKay protested sarcastically. 'Personally I consider you were thunderin' lucky not to get a bullet in you when you started in on those toughs.'

'You've said it,' agreed Nicky with unusual cordiality.

'Still, I think Camilla's right. The five of you together might have put up some sort of show,' remarked Sally coldly.

'M'dear, we weren't together,' the McKay muttered irritably. 'Each of us was woken and fetched from our cabins by a couple of gunmen. If we had all cut up rough as the Prince did—separately—it's pretty certain that the five of us wouldn't be sitting here now.'

Count Axel nodded. 'That is so. We had no chance then, or later, and, however unpleasant the situation is in which we find ourselves, we must at least give it to this man "Kate" that the whole coup was admirably organised.'

'If you are throwing bouquets you might as well hand one to Slinger,' the McKay remarked.

'That rati' exclaimed Sally angrily.

'Yes. He must have arranged this little picnic by cable before we started out from Madeira.'

'Before that,' declared Axel. 'As you have remarked yourself, Captain Ardow and his crew are also in this thing. Slinger may be a very clever person but it is hardly likely that he could have bribed them all during our brief voyage. Moreover sea captains are usually honourable men. The presence of this taciturn Russian, who turns out to be a willing accomplice of these crooks as well as commander of this ship, can hardly be chance alone.'

'But they could have had no idea that I meant to make 103

this trip until it was arranged in Madeira,* Camilla protested. 'I didn't even know myself.'

The McKay smiled grimly. 'Have you ever seen a trick merchant pass a card? You think you're choosing from the pack but all the same you take the one he intends you to. Well, that's what happened to you.'

'You mean they guessed I'd fall for this expedition."

'That's it. You were jollied into it. Pretty skilfully I admit because Slinger was clever enough not to appear interested at the time. But that's about what happened.'

There was a general murmur of assent, then, Count Axel, whose lazy glance had been fixed on the Doctor's face, sat forward suddenly.

'I think that Herr Doctor Tisch could elucidate the point for us—if he cared to do so.

The little German started guiltily then shook his round bristling head in quick denial. 'It is not so! I know nothing. Only that I go to meet Herr Farquason at Madeira. Then I receive his radio and become desperate till the Gnddige Hertzogin agrees to save my great exploration.'

'I see,' said the Count silkily. 'So you became desperate Doctor, when you learned that Farquason had failed you. Are you quite certain that you did not receive that information and become desperate, before you left Paris!'

'You impute—what?' the Doctor bluffed angrily, getting to his feet.

In Count Axel's view 'Oxford Kate' was so obviously the dominant personality in the whole affair and his campaign had been worked out in such careful detail that both Slinger and Captain Ardow must have received their instructions from him long before the ship arrived at Madeira. It seemed to follow therefore that the Doctor must also have had at least some suspicion, if not guilty knowledge of their intentions.

'I impute nothing,' he said bowing slightly. 'I was only thinking that had my surmise been correct, and had you chanced to run into our friend Slinger, who must also have been in Paris at the time—it would explain quite a lot of things.'

Little beads of perspiration broke out on the Doctor's forehead. He was not a good liar and he had never anticipated being placed in his present awkward situation. Slinger had led him to suppose that once they reached the Azores Camilla's party would be removed from the ship and he would be allowed to proceed untroubled, except for some slight pangs of conscience, upon his expedition. Now he found himself not only tricked but left suspended with a foot in either camp and, all his inclinations being towards the present company rather than the crooks, he was desperately anxious that his criminal complaisance should not be discovered.

He stuttered awkwardly for a moment under the battery of eyes rivetted upon his face then, like a flash of light, he saw that this latest misfortune to his ill-fated enterprise could at least be utilised to counter Axel's shrewd innuendoes.

'The Herr Count imputes that I, for bringing you here, am in some way responsible,' he blurted. 'But I haf no interest except in my life work to find Atlantis. Explain please Herr Count how I shall accomplish that if I am to be taken with you as a prisoner to the distant Falkland Islands?'

Count Axel's suspicions of the Doctor's complicity were not entirely set at rest by this potent argument, but he had no answer to it so he replied even more suavely, 'My dear Doctor, as I have said, I impute nothing. I voiced only an ingenious theory and as a practising scientist you will know how often theories are entirely wrong.'

'Danke schon Herr Count.' The Doctor thought it best to accept this half apology with as good a grace as he could put upon it, and sat down.

'Where are these Falkland Islands anyway?' Nicky enquired.

'In the South Atlantic off the coast of Patagonia,' volunteered the McKay.

'The hell they are!' said Nicky.

'Yes. It either snows or rains there ten months in every year, and only the two large ones are inhabited.' At the sight of Nicky's face, the McKay could not resist adding, with a chuckle: 'The rest, on one of which they mean to land us, are nothing but barren rocks sticking up out of the sea to the north-west of the group.'

'I see nothing to laugh at,' Camilla cut in sharply.

'Neither do I really,' he apologised.

'Do you think they'll let us take the servants?'

'What, your maid and Nicky's man? Yes, certain to. "Kate" wouldn't allow them to get back to civilisation before us, in case they blow the gaff.'

'Well that is some comfort.'

'Perhaps. I hope you've both treated them decently for your own sakes. Otherwise they may not choose to continue as servants, without pay, once they find themselves on those barren rocks.'

'Oh stop it,' Sally abruptly stubbed out a half smoked cigarette. 'Aren't we in a bad enough mess without your trying to depress us further.'

'Sorry m'dear,' the McKay apologised again, 'but when I'm in a nasty hole I always try and face up to the blackest aspect of the case. Things may not turn out so badly but it would be silly to start off by deluding ourselves.'

'God we're in a hole all right!' Nicky hit the table viciously. 'I wish to hell I'd never heard of this damn place Atlantis!'

The others ignored his outburst and the McKay went on: 'What happened to the servants last night—by the way?'

'My fellow Bimber was locked in his cabin,' Nicky muttered.

'Oscar—my telephonist also,' volunteered the Doctor.

Camilla nodded. 'My maid was locked in too. Oh, this is awful!'

'Yes, you're hit worst in this,' Nicky said with sudden sympathy. 'It's going to be hell's own trip for all of us as far as I can see, and I just hate to think how long we may be parked on that filthy rock before we can get back to land, but when we do hit New York again you'll have lost every cent of your fortune. God! Just to think of that great fair-haired brute getting away with all that money!'

'There is just a chance the lawyers may not act on that faked will,' said Sally.

'Why?' shot out the McKay.

'Oh, I don't know. I've just a hunch that way—that's all.'

'The whole scheme seemed pretty watertight to me.'

'Perhaps, but Camilla feels the same as I do. Don't you, Camilla?'

Camilla nodded. 'Yes, I was talking to Sally about it in my cabin before lunch and we both feel that there may be a

slip in it somewhere. You see old Simon John, our lawyer, has known us since we were children and that letter I was made to write was very clever but it wasn't quite in my usual style, so he may refuse to act until he gets some confirmation.'

'Besides,' Sally added, 'the bulk of the estate was to go to the Hart Institute. That's for pensions, and libraries, and sanatoriums, for the workpeople in the factories from which the family made all their money. This sudden cutting out of that to leave it to a Bible Society instead is such a drastic sort of change that it is almost certain to make someone suspect that something queer's been going on.'

The McKay shrugged. 'Granted all that m'dear I hardly see how Camilla's lawyer could get a stay of execution of the will—even if he does suspect that there's been dirty work afoot. You see the publicity which will be given to the announcement of her death will be so enormous that no one will dream of questioning it. That's what's so monstrous clever. Her relatives, however remote they are, will be certain to call for the immediate production of her will in the hope of receiving large legacies. The executors will be bound to publish its contents and the representative of this fake Bible Society will arrive to claim the dough. The lawyers and the Hart Institute people, who'll naturally be mad as hatters, may enter a caveat against its execution but, immediately it comes into court, what proof have they got that it's not genuine. Camilla signed the bally thing and what's more she wrote the letter that accompanied it in her own fair hand. Whatever he may feel about it personally her lawyer would never dare to suppress such a vital piece of evidence. All the relatives and other beneficiaries will be backing the Bible Society of course to get their whack, and as far as the judge is concerned Camilla will be dead and that document the last expression of her wishes. What possible grounds will he have for refusing to let the share out take place. Get me?'

Count Axel nodded. 'I think Captain you have given us an admirable forecast of just what is likely to happen. That very able rogue who has engineered this conspiracy is doubtless expecting some difficulty with the Duchess's lawyers and particularly with the trustees of the Hart Institute, who would be certain to contest the will even if it were genuine, providing they thought that there was the faintest chance of upsetting it and retaining such a tremendous benefaction as would be theirs under the earlier document. It is for this reason, doubtless, that all the old legacies have been allowed to stand and our charming Sally allotted the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. All dust for the Judge's eyes when the validity of the will is questioned. He will have to uphold it—there is no serious reason why he should do otherwise—but surely, instead of speculating as to whether he will or no, which is almost a foregone conclusion, would it not be better if we employed ourselves by endeavouring to devise some means of upsetting the enemy's apple cart before the will ever comes before a judge at all.'

'Brava! Braval' Prince Vladimir sat back and clapped his hands. 'The first speaking of sanity which has been made today. We attack eh!—For our so beautiful Duchess we will wipe off these bandits every one.'

Nicky regarded him dubiously. 'You've never been in the States, Prince—have you?'

'No, there I do not dwell.'

'Well, there's nothing wrong with the States as far as ordinary citizens are concerned. They live their lives and don't have to worry overmuch, but I was thinking of the lower East Side, and the bad belt in Chicago—particularly, You don't happen to know anything about them?'

'No—but bandits I understand. My uncle. Count Zir-minie, was what you call Lord Captain de Police Provincial in my zone authoritative last year. In the hillocks lurk bandits who make the workers on our lands pay too dear. We make a meeting with other friends and we take luncheons together. We toast the bandits, we toast ourselves, we toast everybody. Then we go out a moppings up to do. There are no more bandits when we remit ourselves to dine. Next day there is a funeral service, those of us who have come back from our celebration place flowers upon the graves. So it is done. I know all about bandits.'

Nicky sat back and raised his blue eyes to heaven. Tell him the truth someone for the Lord's sake—I can't.'

'It's like this Prince,' the McKay sat forward. 'The people we are up against now are very different. There is every reason to believe them to be excellent shots and they are armed with the latest weapons—even machine guns as I saw for myself this morning. To endeavour to attack them therefore would be sheer suicide. They would shoot you without a second thought, so you had better put the idea right out of your head.'

'They are not then bandits,' said the Prince, 'but what you call gangster such as I have seen in film plays but thought only to be a story for cocks and bulls.'

'That's it—that's right,' a soothing murmur ran round and the Prince temporarily relapsed into silence.

'To get back,' said Count Axel, 'the only chance which I can see of defeating these people's plans is by getting a message through to the authorities.'

'I agree,' the McKay smiled grimly, 'but how?'

'Wireless,' suggested Sally.

'Not a hope m'dear. You heard what Captain Ardow said last night after his Chief had left us. The bridge, the boat deck abaft the bridge, and the deck within twenty yards of the wireless house has been placed out of bounds for all passengers. Any of us overstepping those limits is not to be challenged—but shot on sight. While I was sunbathing this morning I took a dekko over the situation myself. Two of the gunmen were on the bridge and another two posted on the wireless house, the other four relieve them watch and watch about. They've even roped off the ladders and approaches to the limits set. Believe me "Oxford Kate" is taking no chances of our getting near that wireless.'

'We have a week to work in,' announced Count Axel.

'True, but unfortunately we're miles from the track of transatlantic shipping. We may raise a stray cargo ship in the next few days. If so some of us must keep the gunmen occupied while others signal. If we can get a message through to New York they'll send out a destroyer to relieve us and the whole of Mr. Kate's pretty little scheme will be blown sky high—but that's about our only hope.'

'Couldn't we bribe one of the stewards to get a message through to the wireless man,' suggested Sally.

'There's no harm in trying, but the odds are he wouldn't send it. Captain Ardow is sure to have picked his men for this job and the wireless operator is a key man in the whole performance. It is he who had to send the fake message about the accident to the bathysphere and all our deaths remember, so he is certain to be standing in for a big fat cheque when it's all over. If we could reach him we might counter-bribe him with a higher sum but these people we are up against have foreseen that possibility and posted a couple of gunmen on him to keep him clear of all temptations.'

'Well, couldn't we bribe the gunmen first then?' Sally persisted.

'Yes m'dear if you can get near them—and they'll listen to you—which I doubt. Don't you see that this whole thing's been worked out like a chess problem. We are up against a succession of cul-de-sacs whichever way we turn. It is because ideas like yours have been anticipated that the gunmen have been ordered to shoot us on sight if we approach nearer to them than twenty yards. How the thunderin¹ blazes can you try and bribe a man if you can't get within talking distance of him without forcing him to disobey his orders under the eyes of his bosses on the bridge or getting yourself shot. That wireless house has been ringed like a bull's-eye with concentric circles governed by the three great factors of discipline, fear, and self interest. We haven't got an earthly chance of getting anywhere near it so you had better count that possibility out.'

Sally made a face. 'We're in a worse jam than I thought then!'

'Why, were you counting on getting a message through?'

'Yes—within a week.'

'Why within a week? We'll have much more chance when Slinger's left us and we're running down to the Falklands. The gunmen may have got slack and bored with their job by then. They'll enjoy sitting up on deck in the sunshine for a bit, but later on they'll probably get fed up with doing nothing and we may be able to make friends with them or catch them off their guard.'

'The Falklands,' groaned Nicky. 'Aw hell! Just think of all those pictures I'm contracted to make. It'll about break me I reckon.'

'And it's winter in the southern hemisphere,' added Camilla miserably. 'Just picture us shivering on that barren rock the McKay says they mean to take us to, without any proper clothes.'

Count Axel gave a heavy sigh. 'I have always enjoyed cooking as an art but I am, I expect, the only one among you who understands it even moderately so I suppose 1 shall have to become cook. As a daily task I do not find it the least attractive.'

'You'll be lucky if there's anything to cook after we've consumed the stores they intend to leave us,' said the McKay bitterly. He did not mean to add to their depression but the remark slipped out and it was only a very moderate expression of the situation which he was visualising. He saw the seven of them and the two servants encamped upon a stony ledge a few yards clear of the spray from the thundering surf. A single lean-to tent had been erected against the cliff face and the edges of its canvas sides weighted down with huge stones in the hope of preventing the whole flimsy structure being lifted bodily into the sea by the bitter ice-cold unceasing gale that screamed and blustered. No fire was possible, for that appalling wind scattered the twigs, gathered with so much difficulty from the infrequent crevices, even before they could become glowing embers. The inmates were crouching, blue with cold, in an indistinguishable huddle of arms and legs against the rock wall in the most sheltered corner of the tent. Only so could they keep the ill-nourished flame of life still flickering in their emaciated bodies. In his mind's eye the McKay regarded that dirty unkempt heap of human flesh again and decided that the bodies only numbered eight. One of them must have died from exposure the day before and, facing such severe privations unsheltered from the elements it was reasonable to suppose that when the grey dawn came to light those semi-arctic seas another would be found dead tomorrow. He jerked his thoughts back and stared at Sally.

'We've simply got to get a message through in a week,' she said firmly.

'Why? 1 don't see that,' he argued. 'We've got a month before they land us on the Falklands. That's the danger spot —the thing I really dread. If we can't do something before then we are going to be up against the sort of trouble that you have no conception of; but if we wait till Slinger has cleared out we shall still have three clear weeks and the gangsters will be getting slack about their job. That's the time to have a cut at outwitting these birds—in about ten days from now.'

'But my dear don't you see,' Sally insisted, 'for this first week before the faked accident is reported, we are safe. No one is going to try and harm us—but after that—heaven knows. The real trouble is going to start the moment Camilla's death is reported. I've told you that I'm dead certain the faked will's going to be contested. Then, if it fails to go through that devil who was here last night will come back again. What he'll do, I don't pretend to say, but he'll be so mad that he'll probably shoot the lot of us or send us down to our deaths cooped up in that bathysphere. I'm certain he'll come back—certain—and that's why we've absolutely got to get a message through and have him arrested within a week.'

'You seem very positive that there is going to be a hitch about the will.'

'I am. Camilla don't you agree with me?'

'Yes, darling. I feel sure that old Simon John will contest it as it stands.'

'Very well then,' the McKay glanced round the ring of anxious faces. 'What have we got to worry about? Surely you see that the acceptance or rejection of this will is the crux of the whole affair. If the judge once grants a stay of execution the enemies' entire plan of campaign breaks down. What would be the sense in shanghaing us to the Falkland Islands then. They will have gone to a very great deal of trouble and expense for nothing so they certainly won't go to any more, because even if they sent us to the Mountains of the Moon they would be no nearer touching one penny of Camilla's fortune.'

'But we'll still be prisoners so that devil will come chasing back here,' Sally insisted.

'Why should he? What's he got to gain. I suppose you think that having failed to pull off his big coup he'll try some lesser roguery. Force Camilla to sign him a whacking great cheque or threaten to kill her unless her friends pay up a seven figure ransom. But he can't m'dear because you see he will have spiked his own guns by having already caused her death to be announced. Her bankers will stop her account immediately they receive the report of it. They always do when anyone dies and even cheques already out are waste paper. Further payments from the estate can only be made by the executors and who could be fool enough to put up any ransom money for a woman that the whole world believes to be dead. No, if his big scheme fails he has sunk himself as far as attempting any other dirty work is concerned. We'll see no more of him and probably be put ashore at some little fishing village in the Azores while Captain Ardow and his cut-throats sail off into the blue.'

'His big scheme will not fail,' announced Count Axel calmly. 'The Judge may grant a stay of execution but this blackguard Kate has definitely anticipated that. You seem to have entirely forgotten the trump card which he has up his sleeve. Three days after the Duchess's death has been announced her man of business, Rene P. Slinger, will arrive in New York with an eye-witness account of the poor lady's death and, moreover, be in a position to give his personal testimony of the validity of the will as the man who actually drafted it. The Judge may hold the matter up until Slinger's arrival, but once he has heard his evidence he will not hesitate for one second to give a verdict in favour of the crooks."

'Well Count you've certainly put your finger on the vital spot,' said Nicky. 'Sally and Camilla both seem convinced that the will will be contested so if Slinger fails to arrive in New York it means the breakdown of the whole infernal business. It's up to us to deal with him so that he's in no fit condition ever to leave this ship.'

Then, for the first time in their acquaintance Prince Vladimir Renescu regarded Nicky with a certain grudging admiration.

Davy Jones's Locker

It was one thing to decide that the treacherous Mr. Slinger should not be allowed to proceed to New York but quite another to determine the method by which he should be compelled to remain in the ship against his will.

Prince Vladimir felt that this was an admirable opportunity for him to prove his devotion to his so beautiful Duchess and asked that the affair should be left entirely in his hands.

He obviously referred to his hands in the literal sense and the 'affair' as Slinger's neck, so Count Axel quickly demurred from the suggestion and the McKay hastened to back him up by pointing out that, even if Slinger were the biggest rogue unhung, murder was still murder, and they would certainly swing for it themselves if they did him in.

To imprison him seemed the obvious solution but how to .do that when they were prisoners themselves—within the limits of their cabins, the lounge, dining room and fore-deck while he was their principal gaoler—they did not see.

The idea of rigging some booby trap which should maim him sufficiently to prevent him leaving the ship, but not kill him, was touched upon; yet that seemed such a distasteful piece of work that no one displayed the least keenness to take on the arrangement of it.

The problem of enforcing Slinger's detention was a knotty one, and although, realising it to be their one real hope of saving Camilla from being fleeced of her fortune, they discussed it in a desultory fashion for nearly two hours, they could devise no satisfactory plan. However, as the McKay remarked at the break up of the conference when the stewards reappeared to serve tea, 'We've got seven days —six now rather before our friend is due to depart, and one can do a lot of thinking in that time.'

He was right. They did little else but think in the hours that followed, singly or in couples; pessimistically giving each other the benefit of their gloomy and anxious forebodings aloud, or brooding over their inability to do anything about their intolerable situation in silence.

They were still thinking when Slinger appeared in the doorway of the lounge on the stroke of ten o'clock with a couple of gunmen behind him.

'You dirty double-crossing crook,' Nicky shot at him.

Slinger, looking more like a benign bald-headed vulture than ever, smiled amiably.

'That stuff won't get you anywhere so you may as well cut it out. Now off you go to bed—all of you.'

An angry murmur of protest went up, but he waved it aside.

'It's early I know, but we're instituting a ten o'clock curfew for passengers on board this ship just in case any of you feel tempted to start anything one night. That order, like all our other precautions, is instituted for your own protection. Now drink up your drinks and get below.'

Ten minutes later they had further leisure to think—in solitude, each of them having been locked into their cabins, and they were at it again as soon as they woke up the following morning.

Separately or in batches they went up on deck to reconnoitre the enemy's position; found all the approaches to the bridge and wireless house roped off and strictly guarded as on the previous day; stared morosely for a few moments at the gunmen who were on duty and then resumed their silent, unhappy speculations.

No one except the McKay felt any inclination to use the swimming pool despite the brilliant sunshine and when he appeared in his bathing robe, Sally remarked:

'Well, you're a nice sympathetic friend. Quite happy to enjoy yourself as usual eh! While the rest of us are racking our brains to try and think of some way out of this ghastly mess we're in.'

The old brain's had an overdose of thinking in the last twenty-four hours m'dear,' he replied quietly. 'So we're

going to turn our attention to the imperial carcass for a bit

instead.'

'You've given up hope already then?'

Not a bit of it. I never give up hope about anything, even that you might fall in love with me one day, and that's as unlikely as our getting out of this tangle with flying colours.' He slipped off his robe and stood, just five foot seven inches of bronze muscular body in a pair of dark blue trunks, poised ready to dive into the water.

Sally's heart missed a beat. He had never said anything quite so nice to her before. Their troubles faded almost magically out of her mind. The sunshine seemed brighter and life full of pleasant possibilities once more, but before she had a chance to reply he had somersaulted into the water, swum round the pool beneath its surface, and come up puffing like a grampus as he shook the water from his eyes and crisp sandy grey hair.

'Don't sit there like a broody hen you young idiot,' he admonished her. 'Get your clothes off and come in for a swim.

After all, why not, thought Sally. So she went down to her cabin and donned a backless bathing suit which displayed her figure to perfection, then joined him in the water.

Prince Vladimir cast a disapproving eye upon them now and again as he restlessly paced the deck near the pool. He was not a young man of great intelligence, perhaps, but the heart of a lion beat with splendid regularity under his great breast bone and he was utterly disgusted to find himself in the company of men who possessed so little courage. In Nicky he felt 'damp feet' as he called it, could be forgiven, for after all Nicky was a 'cad' and one did not expect bravery from such people; but that Count Axel should sit placidly smoking right up in the bows of the ship, whole skinned yet unashamed, and the English Captain disport himself with senseless laughter while they were all held prisoners, filled him with disgust and contempt for both of them.

Even when Doctor Tisch appeared to tell them that the bathysphere had been sent down for a trial descent the announcement only roused them from their despondency for a moment. In their extreme preoccupation with the knowledge that, unless they could devise some way to outwit their captors, they were all to be shipped off to a desert island on the borders of the southern iceberg zone, where they would suffer moftths of acute distress, if not death— from exposure—they had forgotten all about Atlantis. With the exception of the McKay they had not even noticed consciously that the ship had left its anchorage off Horta in the previous night and now lay in the open sea, with the land only showing as a distant smudge on the horizon.

Upon being reminded of the object which had brought them all on board their reaction was only an added fury that any enterprise so speculative should have lured them into this damnable trap, and they soon relapsed into their squirrel-like mental revolutions upon the now sickening subject of their uncertain future.

After his swim the McKay joined Count Axel up in the bows of the vessel. 'Well,' he enquired with a smile, 'did sleep bring you inspiration?'

The Count shrugged. 'No I confess myself at my wit's end. There are ways of course in which we could prevent Slinger leaving us in five days' time. Mussolini's for example which was used to prevent communist leaders from addressing public meetings when Italy very nearly went Red after the war—a pint of castor oil or its equivalent—that would lay him out for two or three days at least, but we couldn't put it into practice as long as he is accompanied by a couple of these gunmen each time he visits us. Have you had any ideas?'

'Not a ghost of one,' lied the McKay.

'Then it seems that we shall have to face a situation which I do not care to dwell upon. Think of these poor young women on the rock where we are to be left stranded. The hideous discomfort, the piercing cold of those southern regions. We may be there for a year before we are picked up by a passing vessel or can get away. I have few possessions but I would give them all to be assured that I am only dreaming of this colossal frame up.'

'Yes, we're in it up to the neck,' the McKay agreed bitterly. He had had no brilliant brainwave for their salvation, only a simple almost automatic idea, for one of his training, which might, as an outside chance lead to their rescue. Having little faith in it himself he did not even consider it worth mentioning and entirely shared the Count's extreme anxiety.

'The others don't know what they're in for yet,' he added thoughtfully, 'so best keep it from them till they have to face it for themselves. It would be no kindness to the women to cause them suffering in anticipation as to what we're likely to be up against this time next month; and I blamed myself afterwards for saying as much as I did when we had our conference yesterday. Unless we can detain Slinger I don't think there's the least chance of that will being set aside—do you? This bloke "Kate's" been a damn sight too clever for the lot of us.'

'Yes, he must have worked everything out to the last detail, and if we move against Slinger or these gunmen we would just be asking to be shot. The whole affair must have been planned months back, that's why I hinted that the Doctor was in it, yesterday. What do you make of him?'

'Oh, he's not a bad little cuss. Absolutely potty on this Atlantis business of course, but he's a genuine scientist all right. I looked up his record in the ship's library so I hardly think your theory about his being in with all these crooks can be right.'

Count Axel smiled lazily. 'It is just because he is so potty —a monomaniac almost, one might say—about what he terms his life work of the rediscovery of the lost continent that I believe him to be involved. Such expeditions as this are very costly you know and it is not easy to find anyone with sufficient money to finance them. Most capitalists who could afford to do so are hard-headed business men requiring a definite return for such an outlay. The uncertainty of actually securing gold from the venture would bar it out except in the case of a limited few. Farquason was such a one. A man of great vision who knew how to apply his dreams to modern commercial undertakings, and when he had made big money he was willing to apply that to the realisation of dreams which might bring no financial reward.

'Unfortunately he dreamed once too often. He will come back again of course, such men always do, but in the meantime he's had a nasty set-back and had to leave the Doctor in the lurch. Honestly I believe that Slinger or his Chief heard of the Doctor's project in Paris and j the plight in which Farquason had left him, then tempted him to bring this ship down to Madeira by a promise that if he kept his eyes and mouth shut they would enable him to continue with this work in which he is so passionately interested.'

'If you are right we should be well advised to exclude him from our councils.'

'Certainly. Except in the case of some plan which necessitates an open united attack I think it would be wise if we all kept our own counsel for the moment.' Count Axel also had a germ of a scheme already in his mind which was too vague for him to wish to share until he had had further time to deliberate upon it.

'However,' he added blandly, 'I believe the Doctor to be more sinned against than sinning. He could not possibly have suspected their intention of shipping us, and him, down to the Falklands. Consequently he is probably almost as much at his wit's end as we are now and would do anything he possibly could to help us. You see if my theory is right they've tricked him too and he would commit murder rather than be robbed of his great chance to rediscover Atlantis.'

'You really do believe in Atlantis then? Surely if the Doctor is in with Slinger's gang that adds enormously to the supposition that it's only a myth and that they've utilised the old story to bait in an exceedingly clever job.'

'No, my dear Captain. There you are wrong. That is just where these people have been so diabolically cunning. The Doctor is in dead earnest regarding his Atlantis theory so they made use of his fanatical conviction about it to induce Camilla and her friends to come on board this ship. Believe me, so certain am I that the Doctor is right, that if I had a million, and we had some unquestionable manner in which we could prove our bet, 1 would wager you nine-tenths of it that the land once trodden by living Atlanteans now lies beneath our feet.

'You know where we are then?'

'Yes. I was so perturbed by what had taken place that I hardly realised the ship had left Horta until we had been under steam for the best part of an hour but I looked out of my porthole then and saw from the stars that we were moving East South East. Unless I am completely astray, that smudge of land which we can still see to the north-west now must be the south-east point of Pico Island.'

'That's it,' agreed the McKay. 'I took a look at the stars myself immediately the ship got under way and I'm able to verify the outline of Pico because, although it's years ago now, I've sailed before in these waters. You heard that the bathysphere had been sent down to the bottom?'

'Yes, they are reeling it in now. It took one hour and forty-four minutes going down. 5,168 feet the Doctor told me. I can hardly contain my impatience to learn if it reaches the surface again intact. So much depends on that.'

'Getting on for nine-hundred fathoms, eh? The pressure must be something tremendous at that depth. Do you mean to chance going down there if the test has proved satisfactory?'

'Certainly. I would not forgo the possibility of being among the first to behold these remains which have been under water for over eleven thousand years for anything in the world—not even to be free of this ghastly threat of being marooned on the Falkland Islands afterwards.'

The McKay shrugged his square shoulders. 'Well, each man has his particular kind of fun, but I can't see how you really believe in this old wives' tale. How could such tremendous destruction have taken place in one upheaval? It isn't reasonable.'

'My dear Captain, the site of Atlantis is the very centre of an earthquake region. The nearest coast to it is that of Portugal and it was there that the greatest earthquake of modern times occurred. In Lisbon on the first of November 1775 the sound of thunder was heard underground and immediately afterwards a violent shock threw down the greater part of the city. In six minutes 60,000 persons perished. The entire harbour, built of solid marble, sank down with hundreds of people on it and not one of their bodies ever floated to the surface. A score of great vessels were instantaneously engulfed and disappeared with all their crews as though they had never existed. No trace of them has ever been found since and the water in the place where the fine quay once stood is now five-hundred feet deep.'

'That's terrible enough I grant you, but it was a local calamity.*

'How about the frightful eruptions which devastated the island of Sumbawa, east of Java, in 1815 then? The sound of the explosion was heard for nearly a thousand miles and, in one province, out of a population of 12,000, only twenty-six people escaped with their lives. Whirlwinds carried up men, horses and cattle into the air, tore up the largest trees by the roots and covered the whole sea with ashes and floating timber. The darkness in daytime was as profound as the blackest night and the area covered by the convulsion was 1,000 English miles in circumference. I tell you the accounts of the Flood in our Bible and the Mexicans' sacred book—the Popul Vuh—which are almost identical, are not myths at all but actual records of an historical occurrence; and every indication of the locality in which it took place points to Atlantis. Take the island of Dominica in the Leeward group of the West Indies—the nearest land to the south-west of where the lost continent is believed to have been. That too is full of hot springs and in 1880 there was an eruption there of such magnitude that it rained mud in the streets of Roseau, miles from the centre of the disturbance, and simultaneously there was a cloudburst out of which great gouts of water came streaming from the sky. To read the description of it is to picture an exact replica, upon a minor scale, of the Flood described in Genesis where on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened...'

'All right Count—all right. That's quite enough!' The McKay put up his hands in mock surrender. 'I only wish to God that they were sending us to Dominica instead of to the Falklands. It's a charming climate and I had a friend there once—but that's another story.'

Count Axel smiled. 'Well, believe me or not I am absolutely convinced that Atlantis once existed and that we are now floating above the site it occupied. We may find nothing. Thousands of tons of ashes and volcanic lava may have buried its great buildings before they sank. The ocear bed changes and shifts through submarine eruptions from time to time but if the Atlanteans had pyramids as large and solid as those of Egypt or Mexico the remains of such mighty structures can hardly have disappeared like the flimsy hutments of a native village or even Lisbon's docks, so there is at least a fair chance of our finding them. In any case the search will serve to distract my mind from the damnable fate which appears to have been allotted to us for our very near future.'

'You're right, and the descents will help to take Camilla's thoughts off this devilish business of losing all her money too, 1 hope. However, I prefer to relieve my anxieties by an occasional swim with Sally.'

By half-past twelve, after a submergence of nearly three and a half hours, during nearly the whole of which period it had been travelling either down or up at the rate of a hundred feet every two minutes, the bathysphere reached the surface again.

To Doctor Tisch's overwhelming joy it had withstood the gigantic pressure at 5,000 feet and showed no trace of the strain which must have been placed upon it. Round, solid, its fused quartz portholes projected from its sides like a row of stumpy cannons, uncracked, unscarred, it appeared above the waterline exactly as it had been sent down. As soon as its weighty door had been lifted off a rapid survey of its interior revealed that all was well, and no more water had collected in its sump than was to be expected from the condensation natural during three and a half hours submergence.

Frantic with excitement the Doctor came forward to report his news; and his enthusiasm was so infectious that it galvanised the despondent prisoners into some display of interest.

He said that he was going down at once since he could suffer not a moment's delay in making the first trip to the ocean bottom in this area that had so long held his imagination. That it was over 800 fathoms down and nearly twice the depth that any human being had ever been before troubled him not at all. If any of the others wished to accompany him Slinger had no objection to their doing so, he said; but they must make up their minds and be quick about it.

Camilla jumped up without the slightest hesitation. Her previous experience of the marvels to be seen on a deep sea dive had whetted her appetite for more. Count Axel stepped quickly to her side.

'Come on Sally—why don't you,' Camilla cried. 'It's so 122

utterly thrilling to see all the wonderful things down there that one just forgets to be frightened the second the ball's beneath the surface.'

'All right,' Sally stood up a little slowly. 'I'll come.'

Vladimir shrugged his broad shoulders. 'If we are to stand twiddling our toes instead of combating our distresses we can do it as well under sea, so I join you.'

'What about you, Nicky?' Camilla glanced at the slim handsome young man who was wearing again his startling sky blue flannel suit.

'No thanks.' Nicky shook his head. 'If we're going to start playing games again just as though we had no cause to worry ourselves sick I'd rather take on the McKay at deck tennis—if he still doesn't care for the idea of going down.'

'I'm your man Nicky,' replied the McKay promptly. 'Let's go and see all these folk safely locked into their padded cell, then we'll amuse ourselves by chucking bits of rope at each other—it's less dangerous.'

'Come please,' said the Doctor impatiently.

Ten minutes later the two girls, Axel, Vladimir, the Doctor and his little seedy-looking telephonist Oscar were inside the bathysphere and the bolts which secured the heavy door were being hammered home.

The McKay and Nicky had been allowed aft by the gunmen for the purpose of seeing the others off, and now they were leaning side by side over the rail. No one else was near them and under cover of the din Nicky said suddenly:

'Look here. I'm worried stiff over this hold up. What d'you think the chances are of that bird Kate slipping up over the will?'

'Not a hope in hell,' replied the McKay tersely. He was not feeling too civil at the moment having just failed in an attempt to dissuade Sally from going down in the bathysphere.

'Wish to God we could figure out some way of fixing Slinger,' Nicky went on meditatively.

'So do I, but as long as he always moves round with those two toughs in tow how the deuce can we get at him?'

'We've darn well got to start something before the week's out. I got all the dope I could about these Falklands from a book in the ship's library last night and it sounds just one hell of a place to me.'

'It is,' agreed the McKay. 'Still I'd rather sit on the rocks there for six months than go down in that bathysphere.'

'Would you? By jingo I wouldn't. The risk isn't all that great.'

'I mean go down in it regularly as the Doctor, Axel, and Camilla propose to do. I wouldn't jib at a single trip if I thought it would get us out of the clutches of these toughs. But sooner or later there's going to be a hitch somewhere, it will bust or they won't be able to get it up and I'd rather be smoking dried seaweed in the Falklands than in it when that happens.'

'Well—there she goes.' Nicky waved his hand as the great crane rattled and the bathysphere sank under the surface, 'What about that game of deck tennis?'

The McKay grinned. 'Right-ho! m'lad, such simple sports are infinitely preferable to an old man like me.'

Inside the sphere, Sally clenched her hands and held her breath for ten seconds as the circular chamber slid under water. Staring upwards through one of the portholes she caught a glimpse of the surface from below. It looked infinitely calmer seen thus than from above where the wavelets chopped and splashed even on this calm day—just a quilted canopy of palish green dappled by constantly shifting patches of bright sunshine—then they slid downwards halting for the first tie to be made, attaching the hose containing the electric wires to the cables, at fifty feet.

The silence seemed uncanny. Somehow she had expected to hear the constant rippling and splashing of the waves down there but there was not a sound. Strange as she felt it to be, too, the water did not seem to be wet any more. It was just as though she was staring into a solid block of pale greeny blue glass. Not a ripple or refraction gave the faintest suggestion of moisture and it was diamond clear instead of cloudy as she had imagined it to be.

Suddenly a three foot barracuda, that devil of the shallows, for whose attacks on bathers sharks are so often blamed, swam into the orbit of her vision. He paused for a moment to stare at the bathysphere and not the faintest movement except the slow champing of his horrid hinged jaws showed that he was alive instead of frozen into a great block of transparent, light greeny-blue ice. One flick of his tail and he was gone, yet no tremor of the water that he thrust from him with such vigour disturbed the glassy blankness in his wake.

Just as the bathysphere moved again two green moray eels slid by, then they passed a cloud of sea snails and a big jelly. As Camilla had done before her Sally forgot her fears and sat, her eyes rivetted on the window, enthralled by this ever-changing panorama of life and colour.

The red and orange had faded from the light. Only a palish tinge of yellow now suggested the sunshine above the surface and the green was already being displaced by the vivid brilliant blue. After their third stop, at 450 feet no colour remained but the unearthly bluish radiance which filled them all with a strange feeling of vitality and lent their senses abnormal powers of vivid perception.

The Doctor adjusted the oxygen flow a trifle, to exactly six litres a minute, a litre per head for each person in the bathysphere. The weedy telephonist muttered into his instrument keeping in constant touch with his opposite number above in the ship.

As they descended a constant procession of living creatures seemed to be sailing upward before the windows; prawns, squids, clouds of fry, jellies, strings of syphono-phores, shrimps, sea snails and beautifully coloured fish of every size and variety.

Gradually the intense blue light darkened to violet, then a deep navy blue, blue black, and black only tinged with grey. Fish, jellies and squids carrying their own illuminations made the portholes like the eye of a kaleidoscope at the end of which were constantly shifting dots of many colours. At 1,200 feet the Doctor switched on the searchlight. Its powerful beam cut an arc of weak yellow light through the dark waters and at its extremity there seemed to be a turquoise coloured cap. A scimitar mouth was outlined in the very centre of the beam, it remained there absolutely immobile, as though it was only a painted plaster cast, showing as little reaction to the sudden blinding light as if it had no consciousness of it.

When the bathysphere hung steady at 1,850 feet for one of the ties to be attached above, a school of Rainbow Gars came swimming by. They were small slim fish no more than four inches from nose to tail with long snapper-like jaws. Their elongated heads were a brilliant scarlet, behind the gills their bodies turned to a bright blue which merged through a suggestion of green into clear yelow at the tail. No cloud of brilliant hued butterflies fluttering through a tropical forest could have been more beautiful.

At 2,050 feet the Doctor switched out the light. 'We enter now,' he said, 'the region where it is forever night.'

Not the faintest suspicion of greyness now lightened the appalling blackness of the waters. It was night indeed, but night such as they had never known. They felt that never again would the darkness of the upper world be real darkness as they understood it now. This was the utter solid blackness of the pit; that final blotting out of the life rays without which every plant and tree and animal and human must surely die.

'Put on the light—put on the light,' cried Camilla suddenly, and for a second, before the Doctor found the switch, the fear which vibrated in her voice stirred a responsive chord in the emotions of them all, for they were now in one of those inexplicable patches, quite blank of life, so no glimmer from any luminous fish came to bring them reassurance. Land life cannot live below high water mark; or the shore life of seaweeds, shell fish, and rock dwellers, below the limit of the water covered slopes where the sun's light still penetrates; but living things, and those the strangest to us in all creation, still grew, and generated and fought and died by the million all about them and, when they dropped still further and passed the 2,200 level a fantastic variety of fresh wonders held their gaze.

The path of the searchlight had now lost its yellow tone and become a luminous grey; the cap of turquoise colour at its extremity seemed brighter and nearer in, yet they judged that they could see by its concentrated power of 3,000 watts a good sixty feet from the portholes. Outside its edge a variety of coloured lights moved constantly while hatchet fish, anglers, and fearsome looking squids with waving tentacles, pulsed slowly through the path of electric rays.

As they were passing 2,500 feet a queer lightless brute, the colour of dead, water-soaked flesh, toothless and with high vertical fins on its hinder part but only a round knob for a tail, came into view.

'This inhabitant of deep seas Dr. William Beebe has named the Palid Sailfin,' announced Doctor Tisch.

At 2,800 feet a monster passed. Twenty-five feet in length at least, oval in shape, monochrome in colour, and lacking both eyes and fins, a strange beast, unnamed, unknown to science. Some species of whale perhaps since nature has provided the whale with the amazing faculty of changing the chemical consistency of its blood which enables it to resist the gigantic pressures of great depths and, although a mammal, become capable, as has been proved, of diving a distance of a mile below the surface.

A moment later the sphere was halted for its next tie and the searchlight came to rest on an unbelievably gorgeous creature. It was an almost round fish with high continuous vertical fins, a big eye and a medium mouth. Its skin was brownish but along the sides of the body ran five fantastically beautiful lines of light, one equatorial and the others curved two above and two below. Each line was composed of a series of large, pale yellow lights and every one of these was surrounded by a circle of very small but intensely purple photophores. It turned and showed a narrow profile like a turbot, then swam away.

'Schon—schori,' murmured the Doctor. 'That beauty Doctor Beebe has named the Fivelined Constellation Fish.'

At 3,200 feet the path cut by the searchlight had changed again. The turquoise cap had come right down to the very windows of the sphere yet they could still see distinctly for a considerable distance by its bright blue light. Along each side of the sharply marked beam appeared a broad border of rich velvety dark blue and outside this an indescribable blackness, which could almost be felt, made straining eyes as useless as total blindness.

'Lower than this no human has ever been,' Doctor Tisch announced with satisfaction yet just a touch of awe. •William Beebe has only reached 3,028 feet. He is the pioneer who has made this journey possible for us and others who will come after. Later, perhaps, men will gather from the ocean beds fortunes of great size. Cortez brought home to Spain the wealth of Mexico. Pizzaro also brought back for his country the riches of Peru, but these names are not to us as the name of Christopher Columbus who was the first discoverer of the New World. When many years have gone the name of William Beebe will receive much honour and retain it for such time as our civilisation shall last. He also has opened up a New World for mankind. The pressure here is more than half a ton on each square inch of bathysphere but our instruments show all is as it should be. Where Beebe led we have follow satisfactorily—now we ourselves pass on. Oscar we are ready to go lower again.'

The little telephonist muttered into his mouthpiece. The bathysphere sank further into the depths.

Suddenly the Prince leaned forward in his seat behind Camilla and kissed her on the curve of the neck.

'Vladimir!' she exclaimed with a start.

He chuckled. 'Am I Columbus—no. Am I Beebe—no, but I am the first to make kissings with the so beautiful lady I love at such deeps under sea.'

Camilla preened herself a little. 'You are a dear,' she murmured, 'but you shouldn't you know. Just look at those marvellous lights.

Irregular formations of every hue were playing in the dark areas outside the beam and Doctor Tisch cut it off. For a further 800 feet they remained in the tense black darkness watching the fascinating display which now lit the windows. Angler fish came and went each with one to five lanterns bobbing from long rod-like fins upon their heads and sides. Stylophthalmas passed with luminous eyes on stalks one third as long as their entire bodies. Once Sally started back with a little cry of fright as some unknown organism collided with the port through which she was watching and burst like a firework into a thousand sparks, but immediately afterwards her entire attention was distracted by a single large dull green light as big as a cricket ball which went slowly past.

At 4,000 feet the Doctor switched on the light again and they saw their first great octopus, a parrot beaked creature with huge unwinking eyes and waving tentacles more than twenty feet in length. Instantly Tisch snapped out the light.

'He will not see us without lights,' he remarked with unnatural calm. 'Specimens of such size might be a danger if they believe our sphere to be some dead organism.'

For a moment Count Axel's vivid imagination conjured up the picture of a giant octopus wrapping its tentacles round the bathysphere and, by its added weight making it impossible for the machinery of the crane ever to draw them up again, but second thought reassured him. When the creature found the steel ball too solid for its beak and quite inedible it would drop off and he knew from conversations with the Doctor that the cable could withstand twenty times the bathysphere's submerged weight. Nothing but the terrific jerk of flinging the crane into reverse when the sphere was running out at full speed, which it was never allowed to do, could possibly snap it, so they were safe enough unless attacked by some monster of undreamed of size.

When they had slipped down another few hundred feet the light was put on once more and nothing more terrifying appeared than a large eel with a couple of its slim transparent ghost-like larvae. Then at 4,800 feet the extremity of the light beam seemed to dim and they realised with a sudden tightening of their muscles that some gigantic fish was passing. Unlit, the colour of dead water-soaked flesh, like the Palid Sailfin it glided by, its shape unguessed since the searchlight showed no more of it than a rapid glimpse of its side, which¹ appeared like the hull of some great battleship.

It seemed a Brontosaurus of the deep and the Doctor craned forward eagerly to watch it but his hands began to tremble with even greater excitement as he saw what followed in its wake. A school of strange roundheaded fishes with forefins which curved outward like clutching hands. They swam with malevolent carnivorous rapidity after the monster fish evidently in chase. There was something strangely horrifying in the sight of those sinister creatures never before looked upon by man, hunting their prey in a world of utter, forever unbroken silence, through the eternal night of the great deep.

It made the humans in the bathysphere realise more than anything else had done how completely cut off they were from that gay world of flowers and trees and sunshine thousands of feet above. They were staggered at their own temerity and momentarily appalled at the thought that they had dared to invade this vast kingdom of the unknown, far greater than all the land surfaces of the earth together, with no more promise of security than the single thin thread of t.f.a.—e 129 cable, stretching now to nearly a mile in length, from which they dangled.

Their thoughts were so occupied that they hardly noticed their descent of the last fifty fathoms. A sudden unexpected jar caused them to start from their seats in panic, but the Doctor's voice reassured them.

'We have made bottom—5,180 feet!'

They stared out through the fused quartz windows hoping to see something although they hardly knew what. Not temples and palaces of course but perhaps a great section of wall or part of a pyramid and they were vaguely disappointed when they saw that the strong beam of blue light revealed nothing except a barrel shaped fish and part of a mushroom like jelly with a trailing yellow skirt.

The bathysphere had landed on a gentle slope and so was tilted at an angle throwing the beam slightly up. The Doctor moved the lighting apparatus so that the long turquoise finger moved down towards the ground. Then they saw that they had landed on barren calcareous rock. There were no long waving fronds of seaweed, sea anemones, sponges or crustaceans to be seen. No trace at all of any undersea vegetation, for the multiform life of the beaches ceases entirely at a far lesser depth than that to which they had come being, like all vegetation dependent for existence on the light which filters down to it from the sun.

'The bottom is of volcanic rock as I expected,' muttered the Doctor. 'We will now proceed further. Oscar, tell them we ascend to five-thousand feet and then to move forward the ship one quarter mile.'

'Why go up so high?' asked Camilla. 'We couldn't possibly see the bottom from there. Can't they tow us along about six feet up?'

'A necessary precaution Gnddige Hertzogin. If we came suddenly to a submerged cliff face as the ship drags our sphere they would not have time to lift us over it owing to the length of the cable by which we hang. The sphere would crash against it and windows perhaps smash. This way our search will take much longer, but it is safer.'

They were already rising and, after what seemed a long wait, felt the sphere begin to move gently forward through the ever changing constellations of coloured lights. It veered round to a new angle through the pressure on its big fixed rudder which ensured it travelling with its windows to the front, so that they could see what was ahead, whenever it made any lateral movement. They knew from the direction in which it had turned that they were being drawn over the downward slope of the rocky platform below and when, a few moments later, they were lowered again they landed upon a completely different type of bottom at 5,230 feet.

A mist of tiny white particles rose like a cloud when the sphere came to rest as softly as though upon a bed of down and, as it cleared, the beam showed the reason. They were now in an undersea valley bottom into which the currents of the ocean floor had carried millions upon millions of shells, octopus beaks and teeth of long dead fish. They lay there white and even like a snowy carpet as far as the light beam carried the vision of the watchers in the sphere.

'So! Here you, see chalk deposits in formation,' remarked the Doctor and he swivelled the searchlight from side to side, but the shell carpet was unbroken by any huge monolith rounded by countless years of passing currents such as he had hoped to find.

Suddenly a big squid inside the beam gave a violent jerk with all its tentacles and flicked away. At the same moment every light outside the searchlight's path vanished and that frightening empty blackness supervened. The beam was broken by a large round knob and, as they realised what it was, they were utterly overcome by shock and amazement. A human face was staring in at them through the window,

The Empire of Perpetual Night

'Up!' shouted the Doctor, 'up!' and a second after Oscar had spoken the one word 'Emergency' into his mouthpiece the cable tightened jerking them away from the sea floor.

'Oh God! what was it,' cried Camilla.

'The Devil—the Devil himself!' exclaimed Vladimir making the sign of the Cross.

Sally put her hand before her eyes. 'That face!' she said. 'That face! I've never seen anything more awful!'

Count Axel sighed. 'Yes, I have only once looked upon a grimmer thing and that was the head of a man who had had his face burned to the bone when I was studying medicine many years ago, but, after all, whatever it was it could not have harmed us in this little steel fortress of ours so I think it a great pity that we did not remain down there to examine it more closely.'

The others shook their heads. They were in entire sympathy with Doctor Tisch who, scientist as he was, had been so repelled by that incredibly evil countenance that he had given way to the overwhelmingly powerful impulse to escape from its baleful gaze without a second's delay. Now, he told Oscar to report all well and ask for them to be brought up in the usual stages; otherwise there would have been no time for the people on deck to coil down the hose containing the electric wires as it came in, and, as they slashed the ties, it would have slid down in a tangled coil while the cable was wound on to the drums.

'I haf heard of such things,' the Doctor said huskily as he mopped the perspiration from his broad forehead with a big silk handkerchief. 'But I did not believe. It was one such as we saw before who hunted after the big fish.'

'Did you see its hands?' asked Sally with a shudder. 'Ugh, they were horrible.'

'And its teeth,' said Camilla shakily. 'That vicious receding jaw full of pointed fangs, I could almost feel them snapping into me. I wanted to scream but I was too terrified. What was it, a special sort of fish or an unknown type of human which has adapted itself to living under water?'

'It was a fish from the waist down and it had a thick scaly brownish tail,' Sally announced—'I saw it.'

'So did I,' agreed Axel, 'but it was a mammal, didn't you notice its breasts? They were round and full as though moulded from a perfectly proportioned cup, and the only beautiful thing about it. The head seemed to me like that of a monkey.'

'Yes, in a way. It had the same receding forehead but a monkey's teeth don't protrude like that, and this thing seemed to possess some horrible intelligence. Despite that flattened nose with the gaping nostrils it was more like the face of some unutterably depraved human.'

'Undoubtedly it was a species which took to the water in the early stages of mammalian evolution,' remarked the Doctor who had now recovered from that unreasoning fear which had gripped them all, sufficiently to be thrilled by their discovery.

'If you had told me of this thing I would have said "Go and tell it to the mariners",' declared Vladimir. 'But by Crikey I was here and saw it with my own look.'

In the hour and three-quarters which it took them to ascend to the surface, lights came and went, a hundred varieties of sea creatures swam through the beam or later became visible by natural light in the upper levels, yet the party could think and talk of nothing but this ferocious race of fish men who lived and hunted a mile below the water-line unknown and undreamed of by modern science.

The McKay and Nicky were allowed aft again to meet their friends when the bathysphere had been hoisted on to its steel supports, and Sally, who was first out of the sphere ran up the ladder towards them. Her eyes were bright with excitement and her cheeks flaming.

'We've seen a mermaid!' she panted breathlessly.

Nicky smiled, a tolerant but disbelieving smile. The McKays blue eyes twinkled.

'Garn!' he said with frank derision.

'But we have I tell you—honestly,' Sally insisted.

'And she had long golden hair done up in plaits tied with blue ribbon, eh?' he smiled sarcastically.

Sally shook her head. 'No, it was beastly—the most revolting thing I've ever seen. It had a round head like a cannon ball and a short thick neck; hardly any shoulders, but two short arms which from the elbows down seemed to be only skin and bone. It had proper hands with long clutching skinny fingers and sharp nails like claws. The fingers were webbed I think, but I'm not certain about that. I only saw it for a second. Then it had little round upstanding breasts just like a well-developed girl of sixteen. From the stomach down, though, it was a fish and all thick scaly tail.'

'Pity you didn't bring her up to meet us,' Nicky suggested still obviously disbelieving Sally's story.

'You would jolly soon have asked us to send her back again if we had. Her face—well you'd never believe that anything so hideous could ever have been created. She had hardly any nose, just two holes instead of nostrils, a receding head and jaw with two rows of sharp teeth that stuck out a couple of inches beyond her bared gums. Her eyes were the worst though, they were round and unblinking and full of sheer vicious murder.'

'Had she any hair?' the McKay asked. He spoke quite seriously now and a queer look had come into his eyes. 'Fair straight bristly stuff almost like the quills on a young porcupine.'

'That's right—that's what it was like exactly but—' Sally paused and stared at him. 'How in the world did you guess?'

'By Jove! Jefferson wasn't pulling my leg after all,' the McKay exclaimed softly.

The others had arrived on deck and the gunmen now insisted on shepherding them all forward to the lounge, so Sally had to stifle her impatience to hear the McKay's explanation.

'Goodness I'm hungry,' Camilla cried as the gunmen left them. 'D'you realise people that it's getting on for five o'clock and we've had no lunch.'

'I thought of that,' Nicky told her, 'and asked them to 134

start preparing something for you when you were about half way up.'

'Nicky—you're a thoughtful darling,' she cooed taking his arm as they walked down the companion-way. 'You shall sit next to me while we eat. I suppose you fed ages ago yourself?'

'Yes, the McKay gave me a first-class licking at deck tennis and then we lunched as usual. It's amazing how agile the old boy is; I'm a pretty fit man—have to be for my job —but he can knock spots off me where hopping round's concerned.'

'He's not so old my dear, only forty something, and look at the life he's led with the battles and bad weather he's been through. It's that and his grey hair which gave him such a dried-up appearance, but he laughs as much as anybody and his "imperial carcass" as he calls it is beautifully lean and muscular—I noticed it when he was swimming the other day.'

Over their meal they talked again of the sub-human monster. It was the one enthralling topic which stood out from all the other weird and unusual sights which they had seen on their dive and the discussion of it even took their thoughts for the time being, from the fact that they were still prisoners, sentenced to exile upon a barren frozen rock.

The moment they had finished Sally cornered the McKay and carried him off to a quiet corner of the foredeck.

'Now Nelson Andy McKay,' she said, 'you're going to tell me just what you know about these extraordinary creatures.'

'Well,' he smiled, 'it's like this. When I was on leave in England I used to be very fond of running down to Brighton for the week-end. D'you know it—no, I see you don't. Brighton's a fine place, a few days there in the winter makes you feel twice your own man and then a bit more. I'd like to take you down for a couple of nights at the Magnificent—I—er beg your pardon. I suppose I shouldn't have said that.'

'You certainly should not unless your intentions are honourable.' Sally chuckled to cover her momentary confusion and added: 'I'm a nice girl and don't go away with young men for the week-end.'

'Pity—sorry I mean,' murmured the McKay. 'Anyhow, 135

thank you for the young man part. However I'm a reasonably respectable person- myself really and usually stay at the Royal Albion. That place has atmosphere and they always greet me as though I were their long lost son, besides Harry Preston who runs it is a great personality and has the biggest heart of-'

'Now, now,' Sally interrupted, 'I've heard of him even in the States—who hasn't? Let's get back to the Mermaid.'

'Oh! Ah! the Mermaid. Well there is—or was—a fish and oyster shop just round the corner from the front, in West Street, and for years, up to about nineteen-twenty-nine, if I remember, they had a strange looking brute in a glass case always on show in the window. I often used to go and look at it on different leaves and it was only about three feet long but exactly like this monster that you say you've seen today.'

'The thing we saw was only about four feet from head to tail as far as I could judge, not more than four foot six at the outside. But how amazing that they should have caught one. Were the people in the shop able to tell you anything about it?'

'Not much. It was said to have been caught in African waters and brought home by an old sea captain about a hundred years ago. When I last went to look at it a waiter in the restaurant told me that it had been sold to some doctor who has a private museum of curiosities—at Arundel I think—and it's probably there now. Of course I always looked on it as a fake, a baby seal perhaps that had been tampered with—they are round headed you know, or perhaps the forepart of a monkey grafted on to a fish's tail. But the strange thing is that I did once meet a man who said he'd seen another like it.'

'Really!' Sally exclaimed, 'tell me, do.'

'He was a chap called Jefferson, a Captain who was transferring from the West African Regiment to the West Indian Regiment after a spot of leave in England.

'When he was ordered to report for duty to his new headquarters in Jamaica, he had the sense to apply for one of these liaison trips whereby soldiers become the guests of the Navy. It's a chance for each side to swop ideas and talk a bit of shop you know, so as to have some sort of line on each other's functions and work together better in the event of war. Anyhow he was allotted to the hooker that I was taking out to the West India station and a very amusing fellow he proved to be. We were exchanging yarns one night where the talk turned to Loch Ness Monsters, and sea serpents and the like so I told him about this queer fish I'd seen at Brighton. He was mighty interested in that and told me at once that he felt certain it couldn't be a fake because he'd seen its twin in Africa—on the West Coast. It seems that he was miles from his base with a shooting party fairly near the coast and one day he went down to the shore—I've forgotten why now—and there he stumbled across one of these Mermaid things exactly the same in every particular as the one I had described. It was dead, of course, and must have been washed up in a storm. It was half rotten and stinking like blazes under the African sun when he found it but, despite that, he said that he would have given anything to have been able to take it back with him. As he tried to pick it up it fell to pieces in his hands and he was five days' march from any place where he! could have got a big jar of spirits to preserve the bits in so he just had to leave them there.'

'Why did you think he was pulling your leg though?' Sally asked.

The McKay closed one eye in a gentle wink. 'Jefferson was a decent enough fellow but he had a peculiar sense of humour and I had a sort of feeling at the time that he had invented his little story just to persuade me that the Brighton fish was not a fake after all.'

'What had he got to gain by doing that?'

'The chance that I might start airing a serious belief in Mermaids to my brother officers. He was the sort of man who would have got a lot of quiet fun out of seeing me do that and I wasn't having any. Still it seems as if he must have been telling the truth and that the Brighton beast was a genuine fish. I remember too how definitely we agreed that both these things were the most vicious looking brutes we'd ever seen.'

They remained together until cocktail time while Sally recounted, in what she felt to be totally inadequate words, her impressions of the marvellous things she had seen on her first dive. The others too had been busy discussing their experiences, comparing notes upon the wonders that they had glimpsed and persuading Nicky to accompany them on the next descent; for, having come to the conclusion that, evil as the fishmen appeared they could not possibly harm them in the bathysphere, they were all going down again the following day.

When they met for dinner, however, the topic of the wonder world that lay beneath their keel had been temporarily exhausted and the knowledge that they were still prisoners having again come uppermost in their minds, it irked and fretted them into stilted conversation punctuated by awkward silences.

'Well,' Camilla said the moment the stewards had left them. 'We were all pretty nervy yesterday, which was hardly to be wondered at after the shock we got in the early morning, and I think this undersea trip has at least helped to steady us up a bit, but time's passing. It's Monday evening now and on Saturday the balloon's due to go up—we've only five days left. Has anybody had any brain waves as to how we can turn the tables on these crooks?'

A gloomy silence was the only result of her enquiry.

'We've got to do something before the week is out,' Sally announced after a moment.

'You tell me what and I'll do it m'dear,' the McKay said quite seriously. 'The only thing I can think of is signalling a passing ship.'

'Admirable, my dear Captain,' smiled Count Axel, 'but, as you know the Azores he about four hundred miles to the south of the great shipping track between North Europe and New York, and we are at least seventy from Punta Delgada, the capital of these islands, where the smaller shipping calls.'

'True, O Count,' agreed the McKay, 'and although I've been keeping my weather eye on the horizon, as they say in the story books, I've raised nothing but a smudge of smoke and a couple of local fishing boats in these last two days.'

'The sea's so damn big,' complained Nicky as one who has discovered a profound truth, 'people don't realise just how vast it is until they get stuck on it in some place like this.'

'Oh, think of something do,' Sally implored glancing 138

round. 'I simply couldn't sleep a wink last night thinking what that man Kate may do to us when he gets back.'

'He won't come back m'dear,' the McKay tried to comfort her. 'We went into all that yesterday. If the will goes through he'll collect the cash and if it doesn't he's got nothing to gain by returning here, so try to put that out of your mind.'

'He won't get the cash because I'm certain there'll be a hitch, and directly he learns of that through the clerk they've bribed in Simon John's office he will come back I tell you,' Sally persisted. 'He'll be so livid that he'll kill the lot of us I shouldn't be surprised.'

'Well m'dear, it's no good anticipating things like that. We must just try to think of some way to get the better of these scoundrels before they send us to the Falklands.'

For about three minutes nobody spoke at all. Then Camilla broke the silence by exclaiming sharply: 'Have none of you men any brains?'

Nicky tentatively resurrected his first idea: 'We've got to get Slinger somehow in the next five days and prevent him from quitting this ship.'

'But how?' Camilla shot at him angrily. 'That's what I want to know?'

A miserable wrangle ensued during which wild schemes were produced by both Vladimir and Nicky only to be torn to shreds by the cold logic of Count Axel, whom in retaliation they accused of lack of endeavour to help by putting up any suggestions himself. The McKay sat all through it, placidly smoking his after-dinner cigar and watching their faces from under his beetling grey eyebrows; unable to give his support to the hot-headed proposals of the younger men or rescue the Count by putting up some new proposition. He had squeezed his wits until he was half stupid with bumping up against the succession of cul-de-sacs in which Kate's perfectly planned coup had left them and had not the ghost of a new idea to offer.

Their anxiety had shortened all their tempers to such an extent that they were being openly rude to each other without having advanced one step nearer to a practical solution of their problem when Slinger arrived with his two attendant gunmen.

He rubbed his knobbly hands together and smiled round 139

at them. 'Well, I hope you've all had a nice day. I've been able to turn in a report of real first class interest over the ether of your dive in the bathysphere.'

'Oh, go to hell!' said Nicky rudely.

'No, only to bed when I've seen you all safely locked up for the night,' beamed Slinger. 'But the account of the Mermaid was great—just the stuff to catch public interest. Camilla and her party will be front page news all over the world tomorrow. We couldn't have had a finer story for our purpose if I'd thought it up myself.'

'What the devil d'you want to go and tell him about that for,' the McKay snapped turning suddenly on Doctor Tisch.

The little man spread out his hands and was about to reply when Slinger answered for him.

'That's the price the Doctor has to pay for being allowed to go down in his ball, so you mustn't blame him for it. No stories no cliving—that's the order, and if he didn't care to play I'd just have to fake the reports. Now drink up your drinks and off you go to bed.'

They knew from the previous night that nothing was to be gained by argument so with sullen faces they did as they were told.

Tuesday dawned bright and clear again. At nine o'clock the party gathered at the stern of the ship and the McKay duly saw them off. Despite the desperate plight they were in these excursions under water¹ seemed to hold such a fascination for them that once any member of the party had been down nothing short of an immediate prospect of escape would have tempted them to forgo a repetition of the experience. Camilla had persuaded Nicky into going with them now but Sally failed in her attempt to make the McKay change his mind.

'Besides,' he had told her, 'even if I wanted to I wouldn't. Someone must stay on deck to keep a look out in case a passing ship does come near enough for us to flag her, and I'm probably the only one among you who can semaphore,' so he had to spend the best part of the day on his own.

When the bathysphere had reached bottom it was hauled up again for two hundred feet and trawled by the ship a quarter of a mile to the south-eastward, then let down again. In that manner they cruised for nearly three hours but covered no great distance. Each halt with the raising and lowering of the sphere occupied about ten minutes since they remained for a couple of minutes at the bottom every time they settled on it. The McKay estimated the ship's total movement to be roughly four miles. At two o'clock they asked to be drawn up to the surface, and by four were safely on board again.

'Any luck? asked the McKay as Sally scrambled up the ladder.

She shook her head and they walked forward together without waiting for the silent, watchful gunmen to give them any order.

'It was just as wonderful as ever,' she said. 'Every sort of beautiful thing that you can imagine and more. That brilliant blue light too, that I've told you about, that one sees going down and coming up between 100 and 800 feet, gives ten times the kick that one can get out of a couple of absinthe cocktails, but we didn't find any traces of Atlantis. The sea floor is nearly all hard volcanic rock except for the valley of white shells that we landed on yesterday, and a nasty patch of oozy mud that we struck on our last two dips.

'Any Mermaids today?' the McKay enquired.

'Yes, they seem to frequent that valley of shells, we didn't see one anywhere else. I think it was the shock of having a living thing like that come and stare in at the window which scared us all so yesterday. They are very horrible, of course, but I wasn't a bit frightened of them today. They became rather a nuisance though and so many of them came crowding round the ports at one time we couldn't see anything else so the Doctor had to drive them off.'

'And how the devil did he do that may it please your Majesty—make a rude face at them?'

'No, stupid. The bathysphere is a wonderful piece of work you know and there are electric rods on hinges in its outer surface that can be made to stick out like the spines on a sea urchin when the current is turned orij from inside.'

'I see, same principle as a diver's electric knife that they tackle sharks and conger eels with?'

'That's it. You can't stab fish with these but anything that touches them gets a nasty shock. They were fitted originally in case some giant squid tried to wrap its tentacles round the sphere and made it difficult to pull up.'

'How did the Mermen take this unusual treatment?'

'They simply hated it. If they had been above water and had voices I'm certain that they would have been absolutely screaming with rage. One was knocked right out and the others swam off with his body. That shows that they are not quite brute beasts or like other fish otherwise they would have eaten him I think.'

'They'll eat you all right if anything goes wrong with that sphere, but I wouldn't mind having a cut at that meself.'

'Nelson! —Andy! —McKay!'

'Did you see any more curiosities?'

'The biggest squid the Doctor's seen so far. An awful brute, its tentacles must have been at least forty feet long— but nothing really new. Oh, except that the Mermen have horses.'

'Now come on,' he smiled at her quizzically. 'You must save that for the marines!'

'Well, not horses exactly, but they ride on other fish. At least that's what we imagine. On three seperate occasions we saw one of them go by in the distance with its body lying along the top of a thing rather like a small shark and their claws dug into the back of its neck. They may have just been attacking it to kill and eat, of course, but it didn't look like that. They don't swim very fast themselves you see and those fish they perch on just stream through the water like a flash.'

'They say wonders will never cease—so I'll take your word for it. Now what about a swim before the cocktails come round?'

'Love to,' said Sally. 'I missed my dip this morning.'

'Right, skip to it m'dear, and I'll meet you at the pool in five minutes.'

At dinner that night it was Nicky who kept the conversation going. He had fallen utterly and completely for this new world which his trip in the bathysphere had opened up to him. Towards the end of the meal he had talked himself almost into a state of artistic inspiration and suddenly announced a marvellous idea which had just entered his mind. Here was ideal material for a new super-film. A spot of drama in the bathysphere perhaps, then all the underwater stuff with squids and scenes of the Mermen. One of the Mermaids would have to be lovely, of course, a swan among the ducks, actually she'd be a star with a first class voice so that she could come up to the surface and sing opposite him, just as they'd done in the old stories about their luring sailors to their deaths. It could all be filmed by back projection except the above water level scenes, and those of the interior of the bathysphere could be shot in the studio easily enough against the background of a half sphere made of wood.

Everybody thought it was a fine idea until the McKay remarked that Nicky would have plenty of time to practise crooning his theme song to the Mermaid—in the Falklands.

An angry silence ensued after this piece of acidity and, when coffee had been served they commenced their gloomy speculations once again.

The McKay was asked if he had seen any shipping during the day, and he replied, abruptly:

'You would have heard about it before this if I had—I didn't set eyes on a masthead and I'm beginning to doubt if anything will ever come near enough to us in these unfrequented waters to be any good.'

'Oh dear, oh dear,' Sally looked across at him despairingly. 'What are we going to do—we can't just sit still and let things take their course.'

' 'Fraid there's no alternative m'dear until these gunmen get fed up with their job and slacken off. There's no sign of that yet though. A better disciplined set of men I've never seen. I tried to speak to one this afternoon but he just quietly pointed his pistol at me and he would have used it too, I believe, if I hadn't stopped.'

'Oh, they're well disciplined I admit,' Camilla conceded. 'Quiet as mice although they're always close at hand. It's extraordinary how polite they are too in stepping aside and that sort of thing when we go aft to the bathysphere, despite the fact they never open their mouths. They're nothing like I've always pictured gangsters and hoodlums to be at all.'

'They are not like ordinary gangsters,' said Count Axel with conviction. 'But neither is their Chief like any ordinary boss racketeer.

Nicky nodded. 'If he cleans up on Camilla's packet he'll be the biggest shot since A1 Capone was put behind the bars."

'He won't—but he'll come back,' Sally insisted, 'and we've just got to think of some way to save ourselves before he turns up.'

The now sickening subject was miserably debated again but by the time Slinger arrived with his guards to see them to bed they had only become exceedingly irritable without having produced a single new idea.

On Wednesday all of them except the McKay went down again in the bathysphere at nine o'clock, taking with them a picnic luncheon. The ship covered about six miles in a new direction with continual stops to haul them up 200 feet before proceeding and then lowering them to the bottom again; it was nearly six o'clock when they returned to the surface, but, despite the usual excitement which always seemed to possess them for an hour or two after each dive, they had nothing startling to report.

Several new varieties of deep sea creatures had appeared in the beam and they had seen more Mermen apparently riding their swift fish horses to unknown destinations, but the bottom they had traversed was all bare volcanic rock with the exception of two new shell strewn valleys, and there was nothing to indicate the presence of the lost city for which they were searching.

'D'you know you've been cooped up in that thing for close on nine hours, the McKay asked Sally as they went in for their belated evening swim.

'Really,' she replied casually. 'It doesn't seem as though we had beenj down half that time to me. Every second of it is so vitally interesting, I even forgot to eat more than one of the sandwiches we took down so I'm just dying for dinner now.'

'But isn't there a most appalling fug—I wonder you haven't all got splitting headaches in spite of the oxygen that keeps you from passing out.'

'No, it's amazing really. The air in the sphere was as fresh when we came out of it just now, as when we climbed in at nine o'clock. The Doctor allows one litre of oxygen per person per minute to escape from the tanks and that seems to do the trick.

'How about the temperature—isn't it darn near freezing?'

'Not inside. It drops about six degrees in the first two-thousand feet, but after that you don't get the benefit of the sun anyhow and it doesn't alter so quickly, two degrees in the next thousand and only one degree for the last two-thousand to the bottom if I remember right. It was never lower than sixty-six degrees today, the Doctor said so as we were coming up, although outside it's ever so much colder and if you touch the walls of the sphere they feel like ice.

After] dinner the McKay was asked if he had sighted any ships during the day and he informed his fellow prisoners that at about two o'clock a fishing boat had tried to come alongside—probably in the hope of selling some of its catch.

'I've had this all packed up ever since Sunday,' he added producing a flat tobacco tin from his pocket. 'It contains a full report of our situation and a request for immediate assistance addressed to the Chief of Police in the Azores, also a fair sized bank note to ensure its delivery and a promise of more substantial reward to follow if help is secured for us without delay. I meant to chuck it down to one of the fishermen if such a chance occurred but unfortunately Captain Ardow was on the bridge and he ordered this little craft to sheer off, through his megaphone before it was anywhere near the distance I could throw the tin.'

Sally was cheered a little to think that although he had said nothing of this idea he was exercising his wits to plan such measures which might yet lead to their release but she started in on her old cry that Kate would return with diabolical intent in a few days' time and that they had simply got to do something definite before he put in an appearance.

'Yes,' Camilla sighed, 'do you realise that four whole days have gone and we haven't thought of a single practical idea between us? In three days now my death will be announced and then we shall be really up against it. Oh, what are we going to do?

Count Axel Wins a Trick

The nightly gloom would have descended on them all again had not the McKay made a determined stand against it. He was utterly sick of the topic of their captivity and these endless discussions as to whether the faked will would be successfully contested and whether or no Oxford Kate would return to perpetrate some new villainy. They had, he felt, exhausted every possible avenue of speculation and now their only chance lay in waiting, with as much patience as they could muster, for some opportunity such as he had only missed by a narrow margin when the fishing boat had endeavoured to come alongside that afternoon.

Despite the fact that their uncertain future was dominating all their thoughts once more, he insisted on discussing the search for Atlantis which was now actually in progress.

Doctor Tisch rose readily enough to the bait and, after a few moments, Count Axel, guessing the McKay's purpose, loyally came to his assistance. In a quarter of an hour the others too found themselves examining the contour chart, plotted by the Doctor, of the ocean bottom from the dives they had already made, and listening to him with a revival of keenness as he poured out a mass of geological information.

He maintained that the sea floor was exactly as he had expected to find it and that he was not in the least discouraged by their lack of immediate success in locating the Atlantean city. In the cataclysm it might well have slipped laterally with the whole surface of the land a mile or so one way or another just as it had sunk downward at least a mile below its original level, but wherever it was all the buildings would have slid in the same direction and if they could sight one they would find all the others piled up as a great mass of monoliths and boulders in that immediate area.

'What proof have you got geologically that the sea bed here was ever dry land at all?' the McKay enquired.

The Doctor placed his stubby forefinger on an irregular patch of lightish blue in the centre of his map of the North Atlantic. The Azores were well inside it and it ran down towards the northern coastline of Brazil:

'Here,' he said, 'is the Dolphin ridge. The whole of that must once haf been land. All geologists are agreed on that. The inequalities of its surface—mountains—valleys—could not haf been made by deposit of sediment or submarine elevation according to the known laws. They could only haf been carved by agencies acting above the water level—rain —rivers and so on.'

The McKay studied the contour chart based on the bathysphere's dives again. 'There don't seem to be many mountains and valleys here,' he said.

'That Herr Kapitan, is local only. Here we are, as I anticipated, above a rolling plain.'

'In that case surely there's an easier method for you to conduct your search than by bobbing up and down in the bathysphere every quarter of a mile. The range of vision from that thing must be very limited. You might be within fifty yards of a great group of stones and never suspect their existence. In fact you might criss-cross this area every day for months without actually landing on the place you're looking for. There is an electric sounding machine fitted in this ship—why in the world don't you make use of it?'

'How does that work?' asked Sally.

'Eh!' he glanced across at her. 'Oh! a compression hammer released by electricity strikes on the ship's bottom and the echo, thrown back from the sea floor, is picked up by microphone, amplified and recorded. The longer the echo takes to come back the deeper the water is in that place.

The Doctor nodded. 'But tell me please how that would help us. To know the depths is of little use—we shall only discover by actual sight.'

'Listen,' the McKay leaned forward. 'These electric sounding machines are pretty accurate you know. They'll give you your depth to within half a fathom every time and the sea bottom we're over seems to be rather like a succession of gentle sloping downs; anyhow there's nothing jagged about it. Now you're hunting for a group of great stones twenty or thirty feet high at least—if not a hundred. All right then, if we sail up and down working the electric depth recorded as frequently as possible and it suddenly starts to show sharp variations that ought to be the place you want. You stop the ship at once and down you go in your sphere—see what I mean?'

'Himmel, yes! Why did I not think,' the Doctor cried with his fat face beaming. 'I thank you Herr Kapitan. That will be far quicker than our dives every quarter mile. Tomorrow we will try-'

'Time please ladies and gentlemen—time,' called Slinger with sardonic humour, suddenly appearing in the doorway with his men. And thus ended another day.

By seven o'clock next morning the fanatically eager little Doctor was up and dressed, and the moment he was let out of his cabin he sought Captain Ardow. The taciturn Russian made no difficulties and agreed with cold courtesy to his using the electric depth recorder. For four and a half hours the Doctor sat over it as the ship steamed at his request, round and round an outward spiral in a series of ever increasing circles. Depths from 850 to 902 fathoms were recorded, but the upward or downward curve of the graph never showed any sudden alteration. It was obvious that they were sailing round and round above the slopes of a rolling plain. Then at 11.30, more than seven miles south of the point from which they had started, the soundings suddenly became erratic. 901—893—900—890—888—897—. After which the echo did not reach the microphone clearly since the instrument only registered uneven scratches. The Doctor left it at the run to stop the ship proceeding further.

A quarter of an hour afterwards the bathysphere went under water, only the cautious McKay remaining, of his party, in the ship.

At 1.32 they had reached bottom and a message came up that they wished to rise 200 feet and then be towed a quarter of a mile towards the east, the drift of the ship having carried them to the west, despite the efforts of the officer on the bridge to keep, as nearly as possible on the spot at which they had halted.

The McKay was just finishing lunch when the movement had been executed and, as he came on deck, again, he wrinkled up his nose and sniffed a little. The sky was still serenely blue but somehow he didn't like it. There was an uncanny stillness in the air. Without the least hesitation he turned aft and, stepping over the rope barriers at the risk of being shot, addressed the two gunmen who were standing by the wireless house:

'Captain McKay presents his compliments to Captain Ardow and says he had better haul the bathysphere up at once because we're in for dirty weather.'

The men stared at him for a moment but, in a clear firm voice he repeated his message then turned his back and walked away to show that he had no hostile intentions, upon which one of them went off to find the Russian.

No reply came back, but the clanking of the great crane, very shortly after, informed the McKay that his advice had been accepted. He glanced at his wrist watch, the time was 1.45 p.m., then again at the sky. It was still perfectly clear but he did not like the uncanny hush that had fallen.

At 2.15 a small black cloud appeared on the horizon. The McKay studied it with grim foreboding. By 2.30 the whole sky in that quarter had become dark and threatening. There was still an hour to go before the bathysphere was due to reach the surface so the McKay again risked a bullet by telling the gunmen that, orders or no orders, he meant to go aft and take charge in the hope of expediting its arrival.

One of the men held him up with a pistol but the other went off to find Slinger and a few moments later returned with his consent to the McKay being allowed aft to superintend operations.

Having reached the scene of action he took the deck telephone from the man who was in communication with the bathysphere and shouted down it:

'Below there?'

'Yes,' Oscar's voice came up over the line clear and untroubled from 3,000 feet beneath him.

'Captain McKay presents his compliments to Doctor Tisch. There's bad weather ahead. Tell the Doctor we mean to reel you up at top speed and that he's to inform the ladies they have no need to be alarmed if they get a bit of a bumping—got that?

'Jawohl, Herr Kapitan,' came the rather scared acknowledgement.

'Right. Now we'll have no time to coil the telephone hose down so it may kink and cause the wires to break. If you are cut off you'll know that's what has happened so sit tight and don't worry.'

'Jawohl, Herr Kapitan, Oscar replied in an even fainter voice and, despite the McKay's injunctions not to worry, if Oscar could have seen the great black clouds which now obscured the sun he would have been very worried indeed. The bathysphere was not built to be hurled about in a violent storm or the cable intended to take the strain of spasmodic jerks from a ship pitching and tossing in heavy seas.

The McKay thrust the instrument back into the operators hands and began to snap out orders. At first the seamen regarded him with hostile surprise as an interfering civilian, but they very soon understood that they were dealing with a man who knew his business. The crane began to reel in the cable at its utmost speed, a man with a sharp knife was set to slash the ties holding the rubber hose to it as they flashed past, and the hose itself was hauled on board coil after coil in wild confusion by all the hands that could be mustered. It wreathed and knotted in great loops and festoons despite their efforts to control it but the McKay felt that it mattered little if the wires it contained were broken in consequence. His one concern was to get the sphere up before it became impossible to land the party.

The sea began to heave in a long rolling swell, the sinister moaning of a distant fast travelling wind reached them; great heavy single drops of rain hit the deck with a sharp crack then, at ten minutes to three, the storm burst with the bathysphere still 1,500 feet under water.

The crew may have been the riff-raff of the seven seas who had accepted quadruple wages to shut their eyes to any irregularities which might occur on this unusual voyage, but they were sailors by profession and understood the brotherhood of the sea. That lifelong enemy of them all—the ocean—had risen against them. There was a job of work to be done and though the rain sheeted down in cataracts soaking them to the skin they stuck to it without a thought of questioning their unofficial orders. The McKay stood there short and square and grim at the after rail but cloaked in all the natural authority which came from years of comamnd at sea and, to his occasional shouts there came back a cheerful 'Ay, ay, Sir!' as they jumped to do his bidding.

The ship was pitching heavily and every few moments a wave hit the stern with a loud thump, sending clouds of spray over the streaming men as they fought and struggled with the seemingly endless hose pipe. For one moment the McKay considered sending a message to Captain Ardow asking that the vessel should be headed due west to bring them under the lee of Pico Island but any movement of the ship would mean added strain upon the cable, so he did not dare to risk it.

The wind increased to half a gale, moaning through the rigging. The McKay cocked an anxious eye at the masthead to judge their degree of pitch and was not comforted by what he saw. Captain Ardow had the ship just under way and head on to the storm but the waves were breaking over the bow and each time their main bulk surged below the hull the stern lifted right out of the water. The bathysphere was up to 500 feet, but the McKay knew that the strain on the cable must be appalling. It might snap at any moment. He sprang up a ladder into the control room of the crane house.

'We'll have to play her like a fish,' he told the engineer. 'Steady now—watch for my signals,' then he clung to the doorway—peering out through the sheeting rain to judge the lift of the ship and raising or lowering his arm in accordance with it.

As the stern was buoyed up on each successive wave crest the bathysphere cable was allowed to run out fifty to one hundred feet, then as the strain slackened it was checked and, when they sank into the trough, reeled in with the utmost rapidity.

For close on half an hour the crane man played the bathysphere under the McKay's directions like a salmon trout while the ship rode through the storm, but at last they got it to the surface and now the most difficult part of their task began. They had to land the sphere on its steel supports without staving it in against the girders.

The risk entailed in this proceeding was so considerable that the McKay was almost inclined to leave the sphere dangling fifty feet under water, despite the awful buffeting that its inmates must be receiving, but he had no idea how long their oxygen supply would hold out. The storm might well continue to increase in violence and not blow itself out for forty-eight hours. It was certain now that it would no abate that day and if he left them there they might all be dead by morning.

In consequence he called for volunteers to man a boat. Half a dozen of the crew stepped forward and he went over the side with them.

Another half hour elapsed. Hampered by their cork jackets, their fingers numbed and slippery from the driving rain they tossed up and down beside the bathysphere striving to attach the rope guys to the steel eyelets, but at last the job was accomplished. Battered and breathless they scrambled back on to the deck, then came the tense moment when the crane and winches were brought into play.

The McKay stood with his left arm round a stanchion and his right raised in the air. He waited for a big wave to break and then, as the ship sank into the trough, gave the signal. The bathysphere was lifted almost entirely out of the water, the winches clanked, the ropes pulled taut and drew it suddenly towards the stern of the ship. There was a loud clang on the girders and when the ship rose again it had been landed.

The whole platform was awash waist high every other moment but the McKay and two other men were lowered to it with ropes round their bodies and succeeded in getting undone the bolts which held the sphere door in place, and ten minutes later the diving party had been hauled to safety.

They were a pitiable sight, bruised, ill, terrified. Count Axel alone among them was able to climb the ladder to the deck; the rest had to be carried up bodily. Vladimir was unconscious, having hit his head against the steel wall of the sphere when thrown violently sideways by a heavy wave. Nicky's face was chalk white and the Doctor's a bilious green. Oscar had fainted and both the girls were trembling and retching in desperate bouts of sea-sickness.

The sailors carried them to their cabins. Camilla's maid put her mistress and Sally to bed while Slinger sent the stewards to look after the others. Count Axel attended to a nasty cut on his face, changed into dry clothes and then staggered up the heaving companion-way to the lounge. He found the McKay there already changed, busy mixing himself a badly needed whisky.

'Drink?' said the McKay gruffly.

'Thank you Captain, that was an exceedingly unpleasant business.'

'That's putting it mildly—you're darn lucky to be alive in my opinion.'

'You're right, and we owe our lives to you so Slinger tells me. I can only hope for some opportunity to repay you.'

The McKay shrugged. 'Don't thank me—thank the men. Whatever the risk to themselves they never hesitated for a second to obey my orders. It is a pity though that you should have got off lightly. You deserve to be below retching up your heart with the women.'

'Really Captain!' Count Axel raised his eyebrows. 'Isn't that a little ungenerous. May one enquire in what way I, particularly, have incurred your displeasure?'

'Well—you encouraged them to go under in that blasted ball from the beginning—didn't you?'

'Yes, I did. I was anxious that none of my friends should miss such a remarkable experience. You would, I think, feel the same if you had been down yourself and knew the strange beauty which lies beneath our feet. I was wrong to persuade the others perhaps but it had not occurred to me that we might be caught so suddenly in a storm. Surely that was rather an exceptional occurrence and one usually has ample warning when bad weather is approaching?'

'True,' the McKay admitted a little reluctantly, 'you might do a full season's diving and not get caught again like that, but I've been scared of these descents from the first. Something else may happen. Say one of the windows was cracked against a jutting rock as you are lowered to the bottom. You'd all be dead in ten seconds.'

Count Axel smiled as he drained his whisky. 'Such a misfortune is most unlikely. Anyhow I shall not let today's unpleasant experience prevent me from going down again immediately the weather clears.'

"By the time that happens we may all be on our way to the Falklands,' said the McKay gloomily.

'True. For the moment I had forgotten our more serious trouble. I should be terribly distressed though if we are shanghaied before we can go down again, because I am certain now that we are about to succeed in proving the Atlantis theory.'

'You did find something on this last dive then?'

'Yes—not much. We were down for so little time. Our first landing was useless owing to the fact that the ship had drifted from its original position, but we tried moving a quarter of a mile to the east and found ourselves on the fringe of a group of enormous stones. They had been rounded by the centuries of friction from the currents on the ocean floor but they were quite unlike any natural formation. We only saw them for a moment and then we were pulled up. We asked the reason over the telephone and were told "Captain Ardow's orders". Having no knowledge of the approaching storm we were very annoyed, and puzzled. Then we got your message. The trouble began about half an hour afterwards and by the time we were up to five-hundred feet that infernal ball was being tossed about like a crazy thing. The telephonist was being violently ill already and one by one the others followed suit. Sally was the last to give way except for Vladimir and he, poor fellow, knocked himself out when the cable was slackened too suddenly and the sphere nearly turned turtle.'

'Well, I'm glad I was out of that party,' the McKay remarked grimly; 'but if you're right and you have actually found remains of the Atlantean city, I still don't see how the Doctor's going to prove it. Any hieroglyphics which may have been on these stones will have been erased by the currents long ago.'

'Above the sea floor yes, but remember that they are half buried in solid lava and, just as the lava from Vesuvius covered and preserved the contents of the houses in Pompeii so that by scraping it away even wall paintings, and the most fragile ornaments have been recovered—so it should be here.'

'Perhaps, but it is impossible for you to carry on any excavations while you are cooped up in the bathysphere, and equally impossible for you to get outside it,'

'The bathysphere will do our excavating for us,' smiled the Count. 'Rough and ready excavating I admit, so unfortunately there is little likelihood of our getting any but broken remains to the surface. However, it is a very remarkable piece of mechanism, and in its undercarriage it contains an electric drill capable of boring holes in the lava wherever we want them. Another attachment will insert dynamite charges in the holes then we shall be drawn up a few hundred feet and explode them.'

'I see. After that I suppose the sphere will go down again and collect the bits with its claws and shovels so that you can bring them up with you and sort out your catch at your leisure.'

'Exactly.'

The McKay nodded. 'Well, I certainly take off my hat to the little Doctor for having thought it all out so thoroughly. But I doubt if you will be able to go down tomorrow.'

The ship had covered about fifteen knots and was now coming under the lee of Pico island but she still rolled and shuddered each time the great waves buffeted her beam and clouds of spray mingled with the rain that lashed her decks.

That evening Count Axel and the McKay dined alone. The others were far too ill to join them and Vladimir, they feared, had sustained slight concussion. He had received the blow on his head while endeavouring to hold Camilla steady and, sick as she was, she sent hour by hour to enquire after him.

When Slinger arrived on his nightly visit to enforce the curfew he smiled at the McKay.

'Great stuff today, Captain. The show you put up getting in the bathysphere enables me to give the waiting world a real thrill tomorrow.'

The McKay only grunted.

'EX NAVAL CAPTAIN, ZEEBRUGGE V.C. SAVES MILLIONAIRE DUCHESS AND HER PARTY.' Slinger went on with an amiable grin, 'That's the headline twenty million people will be goggling over at their breakfast tables. I've radioed a great description of your epic battle with the elements and started a rumour that the lovely Duchess is thinking of marrying her brave rescuer. I'm beginning to think I ought to have been a journalist and not a lawyer after all.'

'You're a bloody crook!' said the McKay sullenly.

'So it seems,' agreed the imperturbable Slinger. 'I am that greatest of all tragedies. A gifted and conscientious professional man who has failed to make an honest living. Now drink up and think that over between the sheets.'

On the Friday conditions were slightly better but, although the storm had blown itself out, the sky was still leaden and high seas put any descent in the bathysphere out of the question. The ship still rolled and pitched with a beastly lurching motion and every rivet in it strained when an unusually large wave lifted its screw out of the water.

The Doctor spent the morning with four members of the crew straigtening out the fantastic tangle in which the last half mile of communication hose had had to be abandoned on the previous day. Then, when it had been coiled down again, although the bathysphere platform was still awash, he was helped into his ball so that he might test the telephone and lighting wires. To his intense relief their inch thick rubber coating had saved them and, when he came for'ard to lunch he was able to state that they still carried the current to the instruments.

For want of something better to do, apparently, Count Axel offered to lend his assistance in straightening up the contents of the sphere and getting it all in order so that they could descend again without delay when the sea was calmer. Slinger's permission was obtained for the Count to go aft and so, when the meal was over, he disappeared for the afternoon with the Doctor.

Nicky had put in an appearance for lunch and although his bout of sea sickness seemed to have done him little harm he was peevish and irritable. His mind was obsessed once more with the question of whether he would get back to Hollywood 'this year—next year—now—or never' and the cherry stones on his plate having declared 'Never' he had gone off in a fit of black depression to mope alone in a corner of the lounge. The McKay sought out Camilla's maid and sent a message by her to the two girls.

'Captain McKay presents his compliments to the ladies and if they are capable of getting up they will feel far better out in the air on deck.'

This resulted in both Sally and Camilla staggering up the hatchway about an hour later and, having selected a corner sheltered from the wind, the McKay soon had them tucked up warm and comfortable in a couple of deck chairs.

Both of them looked pale and shaky. They had not been actually sick since the previous afternoon but their experience had been extremely frightening and the bout had been a bad one while it lasted. They were now more sorry for themselves than really ill and the salt air soon got a little colour back into their cheeks once the McKay's chatter had taken their thoughts off their condition.

He did not attempt to reproach them, as he had Count Axel for being fools to go down in the sphere at all, but fussed over them without ostentation, in a nice comforting sort of way which caused Camilla to say that she had never quite appreciated what a frightfully nice person he was until that moment, and made Sally somewhat secretly thrilled to have him like her. She almost regarded him as her personal property now and preened herself that Camilla should see him in such a good light when he laid himself out to entertain them.

He was recounting an episode of his earlier years when he had tried, and failed miserably, to get off with an extremely good looking young woman in Malta. Then, having the horrifying experience of meeting her at dinner two nights later and learning that she was his Admiral's wife just out of England.

'Was she a sport or did she tell?' asked Sally.

The McKay's eyes twinkled. 'She never told—then, or about the fun we had together later.'

'You wicked old man!'

'No, m'dear it was the Admiral who was old—in that case.'

'Ship!' Camilla exclaimed suddenly.

The McKay had been sitting on a small stool at their feet with his back to the sea. He jumped up and stared at the long low craft that had just come into view round the corner of the deck house.

'She's an oil tanker,' he cried, 'driven out of her course by the storm last night I expect. Where the devil are the others.'

He dived through the door of the lounge and saw Nicky poring gloomily over a scribbled sheet of figures which showed roughly what his broken contracts were going to cost him.

'Hi! he called. 'Ship—only a quarter of a mile away on our port beam. Come on m'lad and keep your eye on the gunmen by the wireless house while I flag her.'

Nicky needed no second bidding. He rammed his sheet of calculations in his pocket and tumbled out on deck.

'Let me know the moment you see them coming,' cried the McKay and he produced a couple of large white handkerchiefs that he had kept ready on him for the purpose of signalling.

Sally and Camilla had already cast aside their rugs and were watching the long barge-like craft with its single funnel at the stern. Now they glanced anxiously at the bridge fearing that the McKay would be spotted at any moment.

He had ensconced himself in an angle made by the deck house which was not visible from above however, and was waving the two handkerchiefs at the full extent of his arms in an endeavour to attract the attention of the people on the tanker.

Nicky had hardly installed himself beside the rope barrier and endeavoured to assume his most innocent expression when Slinger came dashing out of the deck house.

'In you go,' he shouted. 'And the rest—where are they?'

Slinger, for once, was not accompanied by any of the gunmen so Nicky stood his ground hoping to give the McKay another few moments.

'Get inside,' cried Slinger. 'Get inside d'you hear me.'

At the sound of raised voices Sally and Camilla appeared and the former stared at Slinger with well assumed surprise.

'What's all the excitement about!' she enquired innocently.

'Get inside,' repeated Slinger savagely. 'See that damn ship—think I'm going to give you any chance to signal it— Where's the McKay got to?'

The McKay was just round the corner waving his arms frantically up and down but Slinger did not wait for an answer. His arm shot out and caught Nicky on the shoulder giving him a violent shove towards the entrance of the lounge.

Nicky thought again of the total figure on that horrible 158

piece of paper in his pocket and decided to risk it. He lashed out with sudden vicious savagery and caught Slinger full on his beak-like nose.

'Well done,' cried Camilla. 'Oh well done, Nicky darling.'

Her encouragement was all he needed to get him really going and he began to hit out right and left. For a moment Slinger was blinded by tears and could see nothing, then he too began to drive and hammer, while he bellowed with all his might for assistance.

Neither of the two were trained boxers or had ever struck a blow in anger since they had left their schools so their scrap was more humorous than dangerous except for the first solid punch that Nicky had landed.

A moment later two of Slinger's men came running up with drawn pistols. Nicky now felt that discretion was far the better part of valour and holding his hands above his head backed into the deck house.

Meanwhile, Captain Ardow and two more men had hurried round from the starboard side and surprised the McKay in his violent endeavours to flag the tanker with his handkerchiefs. He too felt that a day was a day and thrusting one of them into his pocket began to blow his nose violently with the other.

'Inside please, Captain,' snapped the Russian with a stony glare. 'Else you will catch something more dangerous than influenza.'

'Certainly,' said the McKay laconically, 'but so will you, Captain, unless you see reason before you're much older.'

'Get in—also stay in until further order,' Captain Ardow waved his gun with a significant gesture and so the McKay joined the others in the lounge.

'Any luck?'asked Sally.

'No m'dear,' he shook his head. 'The tanker probably only had a cabin boy on the bridge. In any case they never saw me.'

'You should have seen me hit him,' said Nicky excitedly. 'I got him—didn't I Camilla—right on the nose.'

'Yes darling,' she cooed. 'You were a perfect hero. I shall never forget the way you stood up to him—never.'

Certainly nobody was allowed to forget Nicky's bravery in the hours that followed. Much as he disliked Prince Vladimir he could not resist paying the invalid a visit to give him a personal description of how he had hit Slinger— 'right on the nose'—and of course Count Axel and the Doctor were treated to every detail of the scrap when they returned from getting the bathysphere in order for its next descent.

After dinner that night this one abortive attempt to secure assistance was the sole topic of conversation and they only came down to earth when Sally said irritably:

'Oh, Nicky was splendid we all agree but that doesn't alter the fact that we are in just as hopeless a mess as ever, and— this is our last night here—tomorrow's Saturday.'

The McKay glanced at Camilla. 'I suppose if we could arrange something you'd be prepared to pay pretty handsomely for it?'

She nodded. 'Yes, Sally suggested that the other day. There's a quarter of a million dollars for anyone who'll see us landed safe in a United States port.

'All right—I doubt if anything will come of it but I'll have a talk with Slinger. There's just a chance that he might be prepared to double cross his boss for a whacking great sum like that.'

'We'll leave you to it then.' Sally stood up. 'There's more likelihood of his listening if he finds you on your own and the sight of Nicky is pretty certain to infuriate him.'

The others followed her example and when Slinger arrived at ten o'clock the McKay was the sole occupant of the lounge.

A big strip of plaster decorated the lawyer's beak testifying to Nicky's prowess, and he displayed none of his usual good humour.

'Down you go,' he said abruptly.

The McKay glanced towards the two gunmen who remained standing quietly in the doorway, then at Slinger.

'Can I talk to you alone for a minute?'

'No,' said Slinger, 'go below.'

'I'm unarmed as you can see and you can keep me covered if you wish—but I've got to talk to you.'

'Get below!'

'All right,' the McKay shrugged, 'if you won't send your friends away I'll talk to all three of you. This game you're playing looks pretty profitable I know, but if that faked will fails to be upheld in the courts you won't get a penny piece and, what's more, sooner or later the police will run you down and you'll all get a long stretch in jail for this hold up.'

'Get below,' Slinger repeated.

'I'm going—when I've said my say,' announced the McKay doggedly. 'Now the Duchess knows that her lawyers will contest that will and if you go off to New York tomorrow you'll find a policeman on the quay to arrest you.'

Slinger's eyes narrowed. 'How can you possibly know that?'

'Never you mind. Trying to semaphore with a couple of handkerchiefs isn't the only way of communcating with passing shipping.'

'Have you been up to something?'

The McKay met Slinger's angry glance with a cold stare. 'D'you think I'd tell you if I had—but I wasn't born yesterday and you can't keep a man who's spent his life at sea in a ship indefinitely, against his will.'

'Well—what have you got to say.'

'Send your friends away and I'll tell you.'

Slinger shook his head.

'All right then. If the three of you will come in with us and arrange for our party to be landed at any port which possesses a United States or British Consul the Duchess will guarantee you the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars cash, and no questions asked or action to be taken. That's a hell of a lot of money—what about it?'

The barest flicker of a smile touched Slinger's lips. If they were offering a quarter of a million dollars for their freedom they could have very little hope of gaining it by any other means. Obviously this talk of the will being seriously contested and communications with other ships which would assure his arrest on landing was pure bluff.

He hardly hesitated a second before dismissing the offer from his mind but even before he spoke one of the gunmen tapped him on the arm.

'Send him below Boss—or Captain Ardow'll be wantin' ter know just what's been keepin' you all this time.'

Slinger jerked his head in the direction of the companion-way. 'Forget it,' he said, 'and no more attempts to signal ships. I shan't be so lenient next time. Down to your cabin now.'

161

t.f.a.—f

The McKay saw the futility of endeavouring to prolong the discussion. Slinger had been set to watch them but Captain Ardow had been set to watch Slinger and probably one or more of the gunmen were completely loyal to Kate and watching both Slinger and the Captain in his interest, on top of which the whole lot of them were keeping the wireless men, officers and crew under their observation. Mentally the McKay was compelled to salute that some-time scholar at one of England's leading public schools who had organised the whole business, and physically, he took himself off to bed.

In the morning a long rolling swell, aftermath of the storm, still made bathysphere diving impossible, but the sky had lightened and the weather was warmer. The McKay and Sally bathed in the pool. Vladimir was on deck again, handsome and romantic looking with a white bandage round his dark curly head. For Nicky the night's sleep had only served to reinforce his opinion that he was in truth a hero and Camilla's chosen champion. He had no doubt whatsoever that if only they could get out of the clutches of this gang she would marry him tomorrow. He was the only person who had actually struck a blow for her and the episode grew in his mind to gigantic proportions. 'Well, I hit him anyhow—right on the nose,' was the remark which he made to various members of the party at least a dozen times during the morning.

The sea had eased at least sufficiently for them to steam out into the open and by the employment of the electric sounding machine locate the site of the lost city by midday. The sun came out and there seemed no reason now why it should not stay out for several consecutive days. By half past two the swell was no more than an undulation of the glassy surface and the Doctor announced his intention of going down. He was however in some difficulty because Oscar, his telephonist, had gone on strike. That seedy youth had not yet recovered from his experience of two days before and had definitely stated that nothing would ever induce him to go down in the bathysphere again.

Doctor Tisch called for a volunteer among the passengers to take Oscar's place and looked confidently towards Count Axel, but the Count said that willingly as he would have done so, he was the victim of a wicked migraine and, to his great disappointment, was not well enough to go down at all that day. Upon which Nicky, who was suffering from a bravery complex at the moment, promptly said that he would take Oscar's place.

Vladimir, not to be outdone, declared his intention of accompanying them but the two girls said that although they might go down later, their last experience was too recent for them to care about another trip at the moment. The McKay refrained from reminding them that since it was Saturday this was probably their last chance of ever going on another dive and settled himself to entertain them. Count Axel, holding his forehead with his hand, went down to his cabin just as the bathysphere party departed aft.

It was sunset before the sphere was hauled in again and even so it had been less than an hour at the bottom. Nicky and Vladimir hurried forward to report the Doctor's operations. They had landed in the outer fringe of the great stones again, some of which they judged to be eighty feet in height, bored three holes at the base of one, inserted charges, been drawn up 400 feet, and then exploded them. After which they had descended again for the sphere's undercarriage to collect as much of the debris as it could carry and the Doctor was sorting the contents of the dredge at the moment.

'Well, it's some comfort to think none of you will have any further opportunity of risking your necks in that darned thing,' the McKay remarked, 'we'll be sailing for Horta I expect this evening.'

'Oh, this is hellish!' exclaimed Sally hitting the arm of her chair with a small clenched fist. 'The whole week's gone and we've done nothing. Isn't there any way we can save ourselves from that devil Kate?'

The McKay shrugged. 'M'dear I told you what happened when I tried to scare Slinger and then bribe him last night. Even if he were willing he couldn't help us. The whole crowd are watching each other like cats and they've got us cold at the moment. Try and be patient. I think our chance may come before we reach the Falklands.'

'We'll never reach the Falklands,' said Sally with conviction. 'When Kate learns——'

She never completed her sentence for at that moment Doctor Tisch came bursting into the lounge.

'Look, he cried and the pudgy hand he held out was quivering with excitement. It held a triangular piece of stone, one side of which showed a smooth dull cloudy reddish surface. 'Look please,' he repeated. 'I haf polished a little—soon I will polish again and it will become clear and bright. This stone is faced' with pure red copper— orichalcum. Atlantis is found again—found I tell you. Tomorrow—next week I will bring up silver and gold.'

They stared at this first certain symbol which honestly justified the Doctor's theories. Copper facings did not grow on rocks at the sea bottom, no one could contest that. Some long dead human must have worked this metal found 5,000 feet under the sea. It was an incontestable proof that the great stones beneath them were truly the remains of a mighty building erected by an ancient race. Further dives might bring the most staggering discoveries; not only gold and gems but perhaps the data of arts and sciences unknown to even the modern world as yet.

Slinger, accompanied by his gunmen, had stepped through the doorway unobserved by the little group gathered round the excited Doctor. Suddenly he spoke:

'I'm sorry. It's real hard lines now the Doctor's proved his fairy story to be true after all, but this time tomorrow you'll all be the best part of two hundred miles from here.'

They swung round on him and the Doctor stuttered: 'You cannot—you cannot. Think please what this discovery means for science—and for the whole world. There is gold also—much gold. Take that if you like—but my exploration must go on.

Slinger shook his head. 'I'm sorry but our plans are made and I couldn't upset them if you promised me a million. I radioed the announcement about the bathysphere having burst at four o'clock this afternoon and ten minutes later every wireless station in the world will have known of the Duchess's death and that of her whole party except Sally.'

'Please—please,' moaned the Doctor. 'Think what this means for science.'

'Come on, Slinger,' urged the McKay. 'Now the Doctor has proved his point you might give him a chance. You know we are completely helpless against your men. If we had thought there was any chance of upsetting your apple cart we should have started something long before this.

What's it matter giving him a few days anyhow before running us down to the Falklands.'

'It's no good,' said Slinger firmly. 'I've got to catch the weekly boat from Horta tomorrow morning, so as to see things through in New York. We are sailing right now.'

Count Axel's head appeared above the banisters of the companion-way. His headache had apparently disappeared. He smiled a lazy indolent smile.

'I'm afraid you're mistaken Slinger. This ship is not sailing anywhere for some considerable time.'

He gave a quick glance at his watch, grabbed the banisters with both hands, and shouted:

'Hang on everybody and be ready for the shock.'

Nobody but the McKay heeded his warning and for thirty seconds there was a tense silence as they tried to grasp his meaning.

Then the deck seemed to rise up and hit them, the whole ship shuddered violently and, as they were flung off their feet a deafening explosion shattered the silence like the crack of a twelve inch gun.

The McKay Makes a Grand Slam

The first to recover was one of Slinger's gunmen who fell sprawling in the doorway. Quick as a cat he rolled over on his stomach, fired a warning shot through the skylight before the reverberation of the explosion had died away, and bellowed:

'Put 'em up all of you—Put 'em up or I'll drill you!'

The McKay was still standing and, as he raised his arms under the threat of the pistol, he whipped round on Count Axel:

'God man! Have you holed the ship?'

A confused shouting and the sound of people clattering down ladders came from the outside on the deck.

Slinger staggered to his feet and glared in the same direction. 'What the hell have you been up to—what have you done eh?'

'I don't quite know yet,' the Count admitted, lifting his hands to the level of his head. 'We were a little anxious that you should not leave us so I took steps to ensure that the ship would be quite unable to proceed to Horta.'

'Damn you, what have you done?' snarled Slinger.

The Count smiled with considerable enjoyment. 'I've had no chance to investigate the extent of the damage but I stole half a dozen of the good Doctor's depth charges when I was helping him in the bathysphere yesterday and, this afternoon, I inserted them in the machinery. Unfortunately, I know very little about engines but I trust you will find that the propeller shaft is beyond repair.'

'Hell!' exclaimed Slinger to the doorway. 'Here Bozo, keep these people covered and let them have it if they play any monkey tricks. Then he dashed below to find out what had happened.

The ship had steadied, the whole party were on their feet again but Bozo and his companion held them motionless under the muzzles of their guns.

Suddenly the McKay began to hum with quiet enjoyment:

'What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? Put him in a boat until he's sober, Early—in the—morn—ing.'

Sally giggled and joined in the chorus:

'Hi! Hi! up she rises Hi! Hi! up she rises Hi! Hi! up—she—rises Early—in the—morn—ing.'

Nicky stared angrily at the gunmen. 'I wish to God you birds would go away so we could have a drink.'

'Keep 'em up,' said Bozo, without the shadow of a smile.

The clamour outside had died down and a silence fell which became monotonous. Camilla broke it by turning the battery of her limpid blue eyes on Axel and saying softly:

'I always knew you had brains, Count. I think you're simply marvellous.

He gave his elegant little bow. 'Madame, it is a half measure only, but I hope that it will serve our purpose for the moment.

'Why the deuce did you go and say that it was you who'd done it?' asked the McKay.

'My dear Captain, they were bound to know that one of us was responsible and, if I had not admitted it, they would probably have suspected you.'

'Oh—ay! Very decent of you,' the McKay nodded his appreciation. 'I only hope they won't bear too much of a grudge. It was a thunderin' good idea.'

'Well—anyway I hit him—didn't I? Right on the nose,' Nicky muttered in an endeavour to recapture some of his fast vanishing glory.

'My arms,' sighed Camilla. 'They'll drop off if I'm not allowed to lower them soon.'

'Better keep 'em up, sister,' the muscular looking thug who answered to the name of Bozo advised her seriously, 'or its you who'll be dropping.'

To their relief Slinger came panting back up the companion-way a moment later.

'It would serve you damn well right if I had you put in irons,' he snapped at Axel. 'Anyhow I'm not trusting any of you an inch after this. My two men will keep you company from now on and none of you are to move out of the lounge until you go down to dinner. You can put your hands down now.'

'Aren't we to be allowed to change?' asked Camilla. 'We're late tonight as it is.'

'No you'll dine as you are and be locked in your cabins immediately afterwards.' With a worried frown Slinger stamped angrily away to find Captain Ardow.

'Well—that's that,' said the McKay, moving over to a wheeled tray which one of the stewards had brought in just before the explosion. Two of the bottles on it had fallen over but all were corked and only one glass had been smashed. 'Anyone like a drink?'

'Thank you—I would,' Sally replied as she flopped down on a settee.

'Nicky darling, will you do things for us,' Camilla said sweetly as she took the opposite corner to Sally.

Under cover of the rattle made by the ice in Nicky's cocktail shaker the McKay remarked to Count Axel: 'It was a darn fine idea, but why by all that's holy didn't you tell us what you meant to do—we might have jumped the gunmen if we'd had a little warning.'

The Count shook his head. 'That would have been dangerous and useless. For one thing I did not know that these two would be here and even if the four of us had succeeded in gaining possession of their weapons there are so many more of them outside. They have a machine gun in the wireless house and another on the bridge. What could be easier than for them to push the machine guns through the skylight and massacre us all.'

'True,' the McKay agreed taking the glass of froth-topped mixture that Nicky offered him, 'but we might have held Slinger and these two birds as hostages.'

'I doubt if that would have had much effect. No one of them is more than a cog in Oxford Kate's machine. I have prevented the ship from leaving this area and Slinger from reaching Horta by tomorrow morning so I am content—for the moment.'

'Yes, it was a good show and you're mighty lucky to have escaped being put in irons in my opinion.'

Count Axel smiled. 'I agree, I had to take that risk, but I considered this creation of delay worth it.'

The cocktails had passed round. Bozo and his friend had settled themselves in chairs, each guarding one of the deck entrances. The McKay glanced from one to another of them.

'You chaps care for anything,' he asked affably.

Bozo replied for both of them. 'We'll help ourselves if we feel like a shot, but we got plenty of liquor aft an' the orders about our being dumb to your crowd stand—so you'd best forget us.'

To ignore their presence was easier suggested than carried out so conversation among Camilla's party became a little halting, but, when dinner had been announced, and the guards had accompanied them below, they saw that if they were to be driven to their cabins immediately afterwards their only chance to discuss the possible effect of this new development on their own situation was between the soup and the savoury—even if it necessitated being overheard by Bozo and his friend.

Doctor Tisch was entirely one minded on the matter, full of praise for Count Axel and in a high good humour. Whatever might follow he felt that the wrecking of the engine had ensured him at least one, if not more opportunities to explore the sunken capital of Atlantis.

The McKay agreed, and stated that since he had seen the crew casting out kedge anchors from the deck house windows while they were drinking their cocktails it was reasonably certain that the ship would remain in much the same position considering that the evening had produced an almost glassy sea but, he added, 'Things won't be half so funny if it begins to blow. A ship that lacks power is like a man who's lost the use of his legs. Neither can either fight or run, they've just got to take what's coming to them. If a sea gets up we're going to roll like blazes, so make up your minds to that, and although the chances are against it, we might quite well be piled up on the rocks of Pico.'

'Can't they keep the rudder straight,' asked Sally ingenuously.

He stared at her from beneath her bushy eyebrows. 'A rudder m'dear can't steer a gig unless there's pressure against it by the boat being forced through the water. We'll be just like a cork in a whirlpool if a storm does get up but fortunately there is little likelihood of that.'

'I wish you wrong,' declared Vladimir. 'If the weather remits a storm we take ourselves to the boats. The sand of Pico is hospitable to our nearness. Then, this conspiracy of bandits is wrecked by crikey and we put out thumbs to our eyebrows.'

'That possibility did occur to me,' announced Count Axel modestly.

'How long do you think it will take to repair the engines?' Camilla asked.

The McKay shrugged. 'It's difficult to say since we don't know the extent of the damage, but if the Count is right and he has wrecked the propeller shaft it's not a question of days but complete refitting in dry dock. As a first move, if that's happened, they'll probably wireless Punta Delgarda for a tender to tow us in. There wouldn't be one at a little place like Horta.'

Then Slinger will be able to leave the ship after all tomorrow.' Nicky's voice held grievous disappointment.

'Yes, but he'll have missed his boat for New York so he is stuck in the Azores for another week, and that, I take it, was the Count's principal object.'

'True,' the Count bowed, 'that I think we agreed, was our most immediate necessity.'

'But it won't prevent Kate coming out to us,' said Sally miserably.

'How?' asked the McKay. 'How can he, even if he wants to, and I've never seen any reason why he should.'

'We were all reported dead this afternoon. Fifty people will have been on the long distance to Camilla's lawyers by this time pressing for particulars of her will. Kate will get wise to it; somehow things aren't going to run as smoothly as he thinks for him. Then he'll come back here just as fast as he can. That's the sort of man he is.'

'But what are you afraid he is going to do if he does?'

'Heaven knows,' Sally dug viciously into her biscuit ice, 'I don't—but I've a feeling that he'll make things horribly unpleasant for us all.'

'Leastways,' Vladimir commented. 'If this defence you sit upon so forcibly is made by our so beautiful Duchess's lawyer why should we sad ourselves. For a week more her fortune is reserved and in that space Nicky our probation shall accept to give Slinger a blue-eye.'

'You missed it,' said Nicky, 'but the others saw. I hit him, didn't I—right on the nose.'

'How unfortunate,' remarked the Prince with a flash of his white teeth, 'that I was lying still in my cabin this time. Otherwise that poor Slinger's thick ears would now be standing out on the backside of his head.'

Bozo, sitting by the doorway of the dining room coughed. It was not that he had the least interest in Slinger's ears, in fact the conversation was almost unintelligible to him, but he did want his own dinner, and knew that he would not get it as long as the people at the table talked stupid nonsense instead of eating up their food.

The reminder of his presence, and that of his friend at the far end of the apartment stilled conversation and five minutes after coffee had been served he was able to stand up, cough again, and see his charges to their cabins. Vladimir taking the Kummel bottle with him as he said, 'To be a safe guarding against revisiting pains in the old knob.'

As they went below the McKay got next to Sally and murmured under his breath, 'Don't worry m'dear. Unless Captain Ardow's mad he'll have to get us towed to safe anchorage by a tender. When it comes alongside I'll chuck them my tin box with the letter to the Police. Then we'll have Mr. Slinger cornered and your friend Kate too if he turns up for the party.'

Sally wished him a loud good night but gave his hand a grateful squeeze as she turned with new cheerfulness towards her cabin.

Slinger had far more cause for worry than his prisoners that evening. He knew that his chief would not take at all a good view of this new situation and would call upon him to answer for not having kept his charges more closely under guard. Over dinner with Captain Ardow he aired his anxiety and the Russian was neither comforting nor helpful.

It seemed that despite his lack of knowledge of machinery Count Axel had succeeded in completely disabling the ship without injuring any member of the crew. A reconstruction of his sabotage showed that he must have managed to reach the after hold without being spotted while pretending to be ill in his cabin that afternoon; stacked his dynamite round the propeller shaft, waited until the bathysphere had been hauled up in case the force of the explosion wrecked the crane on the deck above; then lighted a time fuse and gone forward. The engine room remained unharmed and, as the hold was empty, the explosion was not sufficiently confined to blow a hole in the bottom of the vessel, but the propeller shaft was cracked and twisted so that they were now completely at the mercy of the ocean. Captain Ardow explained with brief and bitter feeling that only the kedge anchors that he had thrown out prevented the ship being washed up on the shores of Pico or drifting, completely helpless, down to the South Pole.

Slinger declared that he did not give a cuss what happened to the ship. The all important thing was that he should reach New York at the earliest possible moment.

'So,' said Captain Ardow. 'Well, I have already wirelessed Punta Delgarda for a tender.'

'The devil you have,' exclaimed Slinger. 'That's a mighty risky thing to have done. The radio about the Duchess's death only went out this afternoon and we made no request for assistance then. It was not suggested that there had been an accident in the ship but stated clearly that the bathysphere had suddenly caved in under the immense pressure a mile below the water. Don't you see that the news of a second big calamity in the space of a few hours may make people suspect that there's something fishy going on.'

Ardow shrugged. 'There was no alternative. The ship must be towed to safe anchorage otherwise we perhaps become a wreck. Later the tender can run you in to Horta.'

'How long d'you think she'll take to reach us?'

'It is an unusual call upon the resources of so small a port so it is unlikely that they will be ready to leave before midnight. Then it is from a nine to twelve hour trip.'

'She may be here any time from nine o'clock on then, but that's too late for me to catch the Horta boat. Even if the tender left you to run me in I'd not get there before midday. God! How livid Kate's going to be when he hears about this mess. It means a week's delay and he's depending on my personal testimony to quash any suggestion of contesting that will.'

'When the tender has towed me to a safe anchorage you can return by her to Punta Delgarda,' Ardow suggested. 'There you might catch a cargo boat calling before it proceeds to an American port, and perhaps save yourself a day or two.'

'Yes, that's an idea, but what are you going to do? It's impossible now for you to run these people down to the Falklands as planned.'

'My engineer has not yet reported the full extent of the damage. It may be that we shall have to go into dry dock before we can fit a new shaft. If not so bad and repairs are possible we shall lie up and wait delivery of new pieces from the States, refit ourselves and proceed south.'

Slinger angrily stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. 'We're in a fine mess either way as far as I can see. I think the best thing would be for Kate to charter a new hooker, have it handed over to you and your crew in Horta or Punta Delgarda then you could collect the passengers and guards off this one and abandon it. The cash doesn't matter if only we can carry the big deal through, but Kate must decide himself, of course.'

'Yes. Kate will decide. I have already reported in our code to him and anticipate a wireless at any time. I have said too that the accident makes it impossible for you to catch the Horta boat—so also he will direct if you are to wait or try Punta Delgarda.'

'Nice of you to let him know before I had a chance to think things over,' remarked Slinger sarcastically. 'If you want me I'll be on deck.'

The night was peaceful and starlit. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the water against the vessel's sides. She was rolling slightly having no cruising speed to steady her, but Slinger was used to that from their frequent dead stops in the last week to operate the bathysphere. His nose was still a little sore and uncomfortable from the blow

Nicky had landed on it the day before and as he paced up and down chewing the butt of his cigar he brooded unhappily upon the unpleasant possibilities of Kate's cold hard rage when he heard of the way in which his carefully laid plans had been temporarily but very seriously disorganised.

Slinger was still brooding, an hour later, when Captain Ardow sent to tell him that a message had been received. They decoded it together in the chart-room and it ran:

'Allow no one from tender on board. Keep passengers below. Order tender to tow you to safe anchorage south of Pico and leave you there. Slinger to remain on board. Leaving midnight by amphibian to join you.

k:

Slinger's hand trembled slightly. 'So he's coming to take charge himself, eh? Well, I wish to God I was safely through tomorrow. He'll create merry hell for all of us the moment he sets foot on board the ship.'

'He has pluck,' said Captain Ardow. 'To fly two thousand miles of water from New York to the Azores is a thing for which I would not care.'

'Oh, he's got pluck enough for ten,' Slinger replied abruptly. 'But he retains a first class pilot and that amphibian of his is specially built to cover long distances. Good night, I'm off to bed.'

He was awake and about again early next morning. At seven o'clock he invaded Captain Ardow's cabin and asked anxiously, 'Look here, what are we going to do with the passengers all day? It's vital that they shouldn't get any message to the people on the tender when she turns up.'

The Russian yawned sleepily. 'Kate has said keep them below. Do so then. Let them remain locked in their cabins.'

'That's all right maybe but the trick they played us yesterday has made me nervy. The tender will have to come pretty close alongside, won't it?'

'Yes.'

'How close?'

'So near that they can throw a line by which we shall pull up their hawser.'

'Exactly, Slinger nodded. 'Then what's to prevent Count 174

Axel or one of the others throwing something out to them from a cabin porthole. A promise of a big reward for help or a message to the Punta Delgarda police. They could weight it with coins or any old thing so that it doesn't flutter down to the water.'

'You must prevent them then.'

'But how? We can keep them all together under Bozo's eye in the dining saloon while the tender is alongside, but one of the men might chance a bullet and chuck something out of the port before the guards could stop him. The tender's deck should be just about that level so there will be plenty of temptation if they do think of trying something of that sort.'

Captain Ardow scratched the bristly stubble on his unshaven chin while the two men regarded each other thoughtfully for a moment, then he said slowly, 'Why not send them all down in the bathysphere.'

'Damn it! You took that straight off my tongue,' Slinger exclaimed, 'and it's a great idea. I'll go and have them knocked up now so that they're safe under water before there's any likelihood of the tender putting in an appearance.'

Orders were issued through the stewards and by 8.15 Camilla's party were assembled in a sullen group to learn Slinger's latest decision.

"You don't get me going down in that infernal thing,' the McKay growled angrily. 'I've never been yet and I'm not going now.'

'You are,' said Slinger firmly. 'And if you won't go quietly my men will tie you up and push you inside it head first— so you can take your choice.'

The McKay's weatherbeaten reddish face went a good three shades deeper in colour and his eyes began to pop below the beetling brows. Sally thought he almost looked as if he was about to burst and quickly placed a restraining hand on his arm.

'Please,' she whispered, her grey eyes frightened and pleading, 'please don't make a scene—I implore you not to.'

'All right, m'dear,' he grumbled touched by her concern. 'But I'd love to have a cut at 'em.'

'Perhaps, but you'd only get shot if you did,' Slinger said 175

evenly, 'so you'll be wiser to keep your temper and do as

you're told.'

'I—I don't want to go,' Camilla stammered. 'It may turn rough again.'

'The weather is all set fair. It is unlikely that we shall be caught in so, twice,' Vladimir sought to comfort her.

'And Atlantis is to be seen beneath us,' chipped in the Doctor cheerfully. 'For the ship can have drifted little in this glassy sea.'

That certainly was a thought of sufficient interest to intrigue most members of the party in spite of their first reluctance to go on this enforced descent, so without further protest they followed Slinger aft.

The McKay guessed the reason for Slinger's decision to order them all into the sphere and he was furious at it; for he knew that with the ship in its crippled condition Captain Ardow would have been compelled to wireless for assistance and had counted on being able to get his letter to the tender even if he had to go overboard and swim with it. However, he endeavoured to console himself with the thought that there were many fresh possibilities to talk over since the explosion; in the bathysphere they would at least be clear of their guards and so able to do so freely.

The same thought had occurred to Count Axel, but both were disappointed. Slinger announced that he had no intention of giving them the whole day to plot fresh trouble for him and in consequence Bozo had agreed to go down as a check on any scheming.

One by one they climbed into the sphere. The McKay was last and before he entered it he gave a long look at the sky. It was serene and cloudless but there was no unnatural stillness and as far as he could judge they had no need whatever to fear an unexpected return of bad weather. Actually he was not really afraid. He had often made trips in submarines without the least anxiety and the bathysphere had now been proved capable of withstanding pressure equally well even at the great depths to which it descended. He had only refused before from a natural caution and the feeling that some time or other the sphere would meet with a totally unexpected accident. However, it might well go down a hundred times before that happened and therefore the probabilities were all against this proving its unlucky day.

'Nelson Andy McKay, where are you?' called Sally from inside the big ball in sudden fear that he had remained outside with the intention of endeavouring to smash up Slinger after all.

'Coming m'dear,' he sang out with reassuring cheerfulness and began to wriggle through the small circular opening. The door was clamped on and at 8.45 the bathysphere went under water.

Slinger joined Captain Ardow on the bridge to wait for the tender to turn up and, at the same time, he began to keep a nervous eye on the sky towards the west to sight the approach of Oxford Kate's big plane.

They had their breakfast sent up to the chart-room and discussed Kate's possible reactions on his arrival, in a desultory, gloomy sort of way. Both knew that Mr. Kate was capable of being not only extremely unpleasant but definitely dangerous when his plans had gone awry. The Russian spoke little except to impress upon Slinger that the prisoners had not been committed to his care so that the lawyer was alone responsible and should be prepared for all the blame—which he would undoubtedly receive.

Ten o'clock came—eleven, and eleven-thirty. The bathysphere party had reached bottom and although they could not be towed in any direction, owing to the disablement of the ship, they had already asked once to be pulled up 300 feet, and then let down again, so obviously they had struck some portion of the sunken city and began blasting operations without delay. At eleven-forty a wisp of smoke was reported by the look out on the eastward horizon then, two minutes later Captain Ardow himself drew Slinger's attention to a speck in the sky to the west north westward. There could be little doubt that it was Kate's plane and, after circling overhead the big amphibian swooped down, cut the calm surface of the water, churning it into creamy foam and came to rest fifty yards from the ship.

Ardow had already given orders for a boat to be lowered and stood by the rail ready to receive his Chief. Slinger hovered near him, nervous and unhappy. He knew that his fears had not been without reason the moment Kate's head appeared over the side.

The plane being enclosed, the broad shouldered elegant Mr. Kate had no need of airmen's helmets or leather jackets. He was wearing a light grey lounge suit today and an experiment in violet shirting with socks to match. The 'old school tie' still adorned his neck but the face above it was as smooth and hard as the prow of a battleship.

Captain Ardow instinctively touched the peak of his uniform cap, and Slinger, forcing a pale smile to his lips, murmured, 'Well Chief—how's everything?'

Kate's cold eyes held him for a second. It was not his way to discuss business before the crew and he only asked quietly, 'Where are the passengers?'

'On the sea floor in the bathysphere. I thought it best to get them out of the way as we're expecting the tender from Punta Delgarda any moment. That's her you can see coming up in the distance.' Slinger pointed to the smoke stack, now grown larger, on the horizon.

'Right, we'll go up to the chart-room then.' Without another glance Kate led the way and the others followed.

As Slinger shut the door behind them his Chief swung round upon him. 'Now! What have you two been up to?'

'No responsibility for this rests on me,' declared Ardow boldly. 'For me the crew to discipline. For Slinger the passengers to guard. That was the arrangement.'

'Well, Slinger?' Kate's voice was quietly menacing.

'Damn it all I couldn't help it,' Slinger began to bluster. 'Count Axel—the Swede—you know, swung the lead yesterday. Pretended he was ill, pinched some dynamite from the Doctor's store, sneaked down into the hold while we thought he was in his cabin and blew the propeller shaft to blazes.'

'You think it a sound thing to leave dangerous explosives in the hands of your prisoners, eh?'

'Oh have a heart Chief, this stuff was intended for blasting operations under water.'

'Under water!' sneered Kate with icy contempt. 'Is that any reason to suppose that it would fail to explode in the air. The Count must be soft witted I think not to have blown the bridge up while he was at it and sent the two of you with half my men to Hell!'

'We didn't lose a man,' pleaded Slinger. 'Not even one of 178

the engine room hands received a scratch, and we had the whole party cold within thirty seconds of the explosion.'

'Why should you take credit for that? It was merely their own incompetence.'

'But Chief there's never been any question of their escaping or securing help. The whole bunch are every bit as much under your thumb as they were this time last week.'

'It's lucky for you they are, since I made this trip to see them. Ardow! get them pulled up at once.'

The Russian gave an order down the bridge telephone. Slinger felt just a shade easier in his mind. The implication was that Kate had not flown two thousand miles specially to berate him for his carelessness but had a more important reason for his return. After a moment he ventured:

'Did the New York papers play up on the radios we sent?'

'Oh the Press haven't had such a break in a generation,' the big square faced man in the grey suit stared moodily out of the chart-room window. He seemed to have forgotten Slinger's criminal negligence. 'The papers last night had headlines inches deep about the Duchess's death. It's a great human interest story of course—this poor little rich girl and her bunch of lovers. The Atlantis story alone would have made the editors' hearts rejoice when this crank of a Doctor started discovering mermaids, but with the Duchess in it as well even the marriage of King Karloff has been crowded out. But the innocent looking little devil tricked me and by God she's going to sweat for it. You just watch her eyes start out of her head when I tell her how.'

'Tricked,' exclaimed Slinger. He almost added, 'You,' but caught himself in time. 'Why are they contesting that will then—seriously?'

'Yes—it's my fault—mine entirely. The only slip I've ever made I think and it's hard that it should occur in my biggest coup. It never occurred to me to get a specimen of her signature so that I could verify it when she signed the will. She had the wit to alter it apparently and only half an hour before I got your radio I learned from our pigeon in the lawyer's office that they had suspected the genuineness of the document the moment they received it. Immediately her death was reported of course the rat began to stink a mile away. That's how he got on to what she had done.'

'What—what do you intend to do, Chief?' Slinger hazarded.

Kate was still staring out of the window, his thoughts apparently far away. He fingered his 'old school tie' meditatively and replied in a voice lacking all emotion:

'Teach her just what it costs to try and be too clever, as I will teach you not to be quite so careless—later on.'

There was a horrid silence which continued for several moments, neither Slinger nor Ardow cared to break it. Then a red-faced sailor flung open the chart-room door and thrust his head inside.

'Warship coming up on our port quarter, Captain,' he reported, and slammed the door again.

Instantly the three men in the chart-room were startled into activity. Captain Ardow grabbed his glasses, but Kate was the first to tumble outside. They stared in the direction where the smudge of smoke had first appeared on the horizon half an hour before. It was not the tender that they had expected but a long trim destroyer cleaving the water dead towards them at thirty knots.

Even without glasses they could see that she flew the White Ensign and she was approaching at such speed that in another moment they could see the faces of the men on her decks.

'Hell!' muttered Kate, 'I thought the U.S.N, might send a ship out to investigate, what with your radio for a tender and the lawyer's questioning the will all within a few hours of the Duchess's death being reported—but they couldn't have got here under three days and even if they'd sent a plane it wouldn't have started till this morning. But how have the British rumbled us? This can't be coincidence.'

'We can neither fight nor run,' said Ardow, 'and if we were under steam that thing could catch us in ten minutes. Look there's another smoke stack about three degrees to the left. That's the tender I expect.'

'Never mind the tender,' Kate snapped. 'Stop that bathysphere coming up. I don't want the party here if we've got to face an inquiry.'

'They'll not be anywhere near the surface yet,' demurred Slinger.

'You heard me. Do as I tell you. Then get the men together. Ardow have a boat got out on the starboard side.

The destroyer can't have been near enough to have seen my plane when it came down and its concealed now by the bulk of the ship. Then gun squad are to be sent off to her without a second's delay. We'll remain for the moment and attempt to bluff things out. Say the sphere caught in the rocks on the bottom when it burst and that's why we can't get it up. With the passengers and guards clear of the ship there'll be nothing suspicious to give us away even if they search it from stem to stern. Sally Hart will have to have been in the bathysphere too, when it burst, after all, so she'll lose her hundred thousand if we do succeed in forcing our version of the will through the courts. Her heirs will get it instead but I can't help that. It's her unlucky day. Immediately the two of you have got the men away you'll receive the visitors. I'm only a curious idler who was staying in the Azores and flew out this morning to see the scene of the tragedy.'

Slinger shouted hoarsely down the bridge telephone for the bathysphere to be halted on its upward journey, then shot down the inside ladder to get the men, while Ardow dashed aft to order out a boat.

With what seemed incredible swiftness now the destroyer leapt towards them. It made a graceful curve and came to rest about two hundred yards to port. The shrill pipe of a whistle sounded and, by the time Slinger came panting up the ladder again to report that the gunmen were safely in the boat, the blue jackets had begun to lower a whaler with swift efficiency from the destroyer's side.

'By Jove, they're smart, aren't they—and just to think that I might be commanding that if I'd gone to Dartmouth as the Governor wanted.' Kate spoke with a whole-hearted admiration which left Slinger in open-mouth amazement then, as Ardow appeared, he snapped, 'Down you go—both of you. There's nothing to be scared of. You've got a watertight story and it should be easy to pull the wool over the officer's eyes.'

He stepped out on to the port side of the low bridge where he would be able both to see and hear what passed at the interview, while Slinger and Ardow hurried down to the deck. A ladder was lowered and then they stood waiting with nervous impatience to learn the meaning of this visitation.

The destroyer's boat was gently fended off and a Naval Officer came up the ladder followed by a dozen men all armed with short rifles. He carefully dusted his coat, saluted the quarter deck, and took in Captain Ardow with a glance that was almost as steely as Kate.'

'You are the Captain of this ship?' he asked.

'Yes, Captain Ardow at your service,' the Russian replied.

'You have a Captain McKay sailing as one of your passengers?'

'We had until this terrible tragedy. You will have heard

I-—'

'You have I said,' the Naval Officer repeated icily, 'and you will send this message to him. "Lieutenant Commander Landon Macy presents his compliments to Captain McKay and would be grateful for a word with him at once." '

'But that is impossible,' Ardow protested. 'Did you not hear over the wireless last night-'

'Yes, I heard,' Landon Macy interrupted grimly, 'but the game's up my man. Captain McKay was too smart for you. He's been morsing with his cabin light each night in the hope that some ship would pick up his signals. Last night he was successful although he got no reply because he kept on sending out a warning that his signals should not be acknowledged in case you tumbled to what was happening. The whole story was relayed to Gib and we were wirelessed to pick you up, so you'll send my message at once.'

Slinger had gone deadly white. 'We—we can't,' he stammered. 'The accident did happen and the bathysphere's stuck on the bottom with them dead in it.'

The Naval Officer swung round on him. 'They're no more dead than I am, but I suppose you sent them down in it to get them out of the way. You'll get that bathysphere up, blast you, and be quick about it or I'll know the reason why.'

Kate had been listening on the low bridge above. His hands began to tremble with fury when he realised that the McKay had outwitted him and that his entire scheme had been blown to smithereens. Now he slipped down a ladder and ran swiftly aft.

Landon Macy caught sight of him out of the tail of his eye.

'Who's that?' he snapped.

'A—a visitor,' Slinger stuttered uncertainly.

'Visitor be damned!' exclaimed Landon Macy swinging round to a Petty Officer. 'Stevens keep a couple of men and arrest these two. The rest of you follow me.' Then drawing his revolver, he dashed after Kate.

Kate reached the open sided crane house thirty seconds in advance. White hot with rage he had determined that the skilful manoeuvres of Camilla and the McKay to outwit him should cost the whole party their lives.

The machinery was silent. The bathysphere dangling, halted on its upward journey in accordance with his last instructions. A group of seamen lounged idly by, waiting for fresh orders. Kate pushed his way past them and leapt into the crane house, thrusting the engineer aside.

For a second he stared at the machinery then he seized the big lever and pulled it right over. The cable began to run out at lightning speed. 'That's done it,' he thought. 'When the cable comes to an end it will snap off the drum or if they reach bottom first the damn thing will be smashed upon the rocks.'

'Shove up your hands!' yelled Landon Macey, bursting in through the port door.

Kate threw him one swift contemptuous glance, then in a flash he had bounded out of the starboard entrance on to the deck.

Landon Macy followed. His pistol cracked. Kate lurched wildly just as he reached the ship's rail then recovered and leapt over into the sea.

The bluejackets, their rifles at the ready, dived through the maze of winches, hose coils, and cable drums which crowded the stern of the vessel, following their officer as he ran towards the ship's side.

Kate's head had already appeared above water and he was swimming strongly towards his amphibian. They raised their rifles to take aim.

Suddenly a machine gun began to stutter from the plane. A hail of bullets spattered the machinery and the deck. One sailor fell, hit in the stomach—another in the legs. The rest dashed for cover.

Crouching behind the winches two of them took pot shots at Kate but he dived again and the bullets missed him. Two more machine guns were brought into play by his men.

Three streams of bullets now thudded zipped, whined as they sprayed the deck and ricochetted from the machinery. The sailors were compelled to keep behind their cover and under such terrific fire dared not peer out to risk another shot.

Landon Macy, back behind the crane house was rapidly semaphoring his ship, to tell them of the hidden plane.

His Commander had heard the shooting and ordered out another boat with reinforcements. Now, he stood gripping the bridge rail with a little group of officers and men behind him all taking in Landon Macy's signals. None of them had yet seen the plane which lay concealed behind Doctor Tisch's ship but immediately they realised what was happening orders were given for an anti-aircraft gun to be prepared for action immediately the plane left the water.

Kate was being hauled aboard at the very moment the order was given. Then engines of the plane burst into a roar. With hardly a seconds delay it began to move swiftly over the smooth water while its machine guns still kept up a heavy fusillade to cover its retreat.

By the time the canvas gun-covers had been removed the amphibian had already circled into the wind and risen in the air.

With frantic haste the gun's crew loaded up and sighted their weapon. The plane had climbed five hundred feet.

Suddenly it swerved, losing height a little. Then shot up at so sharp an angle that it seemed certain it must stall and come crashing down tail first into the water; but Kate's pilot was an ace and knew his business. The pompom gave a series of staccato cracks, but the livid flame of the shell bursts surrounded by their fleecy clouds of grey smoke were three hundred feet beneath him.

The attempts to bring down the plane continued. The Commander of the destroyer, a little man, not unlike the McKay in his general appearance, got redder and redder in the face as Kate's amphibian rose higher in the air, successfully avoiding the successive bursts of shell fire from the anti-aircraft gun by constant dives, twists, and changes of direction.

Landon Macy and his men stood gaping skywards on the scarred after deck among Doctor Tisch's machinery, praying for a hit which would bring down the plane, but after a few moments the gun on the destroyer ceased fire. The amphibian was now only a black spot in the bright blue sky disappearing swiftly to the westward.

As the men moved to pick up the wounded, Landon Macy suddenly thought of the bathysphere again. He ran to the crane house. The engineer was lying hunched at the foot of the starboard ladder, blood dripped slowly from hi:, shattered head into a great pool on the deck. He had been caught in the first burst of machine gun fire and was quite dead. The other members of the crew had dived below to safety.

The Lieutenant Commander sprang up the ladder. The big lever was still turned right over to 'full out' where Kate had jammed it. The cable was sizzling through the steel blocks above it at a terrific speed. They would have been on fire with the heat caused by the friction if they had been wood. The great drums were whirling round like the wheels of a locomotive as the cable left them, the whole machinery hummed and vibrated like a powerful dynamo at full beat. Landon Macy gave the roaring machinery one anxious glance then grabbed the lever. As he jerked it back to stop the bathysphere crashing on the bottom its gears grated harshly—then it slid into reverse.

14

The Last Dive

On the day after Kate's seizure of the ship the McKay, almost as a matter of routine, had played with his gold pencil and a piece of paper for half an hour until he had drafted a brief message stating the situation without one unnecessary word. It began: 'S O S. Do not acknowledge. Relay to Admiralty.' Then followed a concise account of Kate's conspiracy.

That night, and each night since he had morsed the report by means of the light switch in his cabin at least a dozen times between ten o'clock and dawn, taking his sleep in three hour stretches. He had felt convinced that providing his little game was not stopped through one of the people on the bridge spotting the reflection of his flashes in the water, the message would certainly be picked up sooner or later, and help arrive; although he had no great hopes of getting it through until they crossed the great shipping belts on the way south to the Falklands.

When he scrambled into the bathysphere at 8.45 on the morning after the explosion therefore, he had not the least idea that his signals had been picked up the night before and that the Admiralty had ordered a destroyer to be detached from a flotilla which was proceeding to the Bermudas, for their rescue.

Sally insisted that since this was his first dive he should be given one of the canvas chairs nearest the portholes and, to get him settled in it, needed considerable manipulation owing to his having been last through the door. The bathysphere had been designed to hold eight persons and it was now full to capacity Camilla, Sally, Axel, Vladimir, Nicky,

Dr. Tisch, the McKay and the gunman Bozo made up the party. Sally, the McKay and the Doctor, who controlled the searchlight, had the better seats, Camilla, between two of her lovers, Axel and Vladimir, sat behind them, while Nicky as volunteer telephonist, with Bozo, who made a point of having his back against a wall, occupied places by the door.

As the sphere went under the McKay was not particularly intrigued. Three aurelia jellies drifted by and a big shoal of arrow worms then, at their first halt they saw a Puppy Shark about two feet in length with a Pilot fish beneath it. A hundred feet lower the strange exhilaration of that unearthly blue light had begun to get hold of him a little and he leaned forward to peer at a big Snapper which goggled in at him, pressing its face close to the window. A moment later a whole battalion, several hundreds strong, of great blue Parrot fishes came into view swimming almost vertically downwards and through them, in a horizontal direction passed a division comprising thousands of smooth silvery Sardines. The effect of this warp and woof as the two different coloured schools passed through each other was indescribably lovely. Similar sights had often been seen by the others since they occurred several times on every dive, but it was new to the McKay and he admitted to himself that the small element of risk involved in a single trip, now that the bathysphere's resistance had been proved, was worth it.

He was peering out of the porthole with his face so close to the fused quartz at 500 feet that his breath condensed upon it and he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe away the moisture.

'Good God!' he exclaimed, 'what's happened?' He knew quite well that the handkerchief was a bright scarlet silk bandana patterned in green. Now it appeared dead black and the design had vanished.

The Doctor gave his throaty chuckle. 'The red rays of the sun no longer penetrate to here Herr Kapitan. I was surprised myself when I first beheld this strange phenomenon, although I knew it to be so from accounts of deep sea diving.'

At 800 feet the deep blue light remained but everything had taken on a ghostly form. Strange shadowy shapes flickered past and as the sphere descended further many of them began to show luminosity. When they came to rest at 1,600, five fishes swam past with blotches on them which glistened like tinfoil in the grey blue darkness then some unseen organism spat out a rocket-like burst of luminous fluid.

At 2,000 feet the Doctor put on the light for a few moments and a shoal of brilliant silver fish were caught in it turning like a flight of birds. Later they saw a creature with two large reddish lights in front and a constellation of smaller ones, all pale blue, then a great Squid with light organs encircling its eye, but the teeming life changed so constantly as the sphere was lowered that they caught little more than a glimpse of individual specimens and had no time to examine one tenth of all the marvels that passed the windows.

The Doctor judged that the day before they had been on the western fringe of the Atlantean city and he feared now that the drift of the ship might have carried them away from the area of its remains, but when they reached bottom at 10.40 he found to his joy that they were apparently well inside its limits. A line of tall rounded stones equal in circumference but uneven in height, rising quite near them from the ocean bed, definitely suggested a row of truncated columns.

By means of operating the claws in its undercarriage the Doctor turned the sphere gently and a solid surface, reaching up into the darkness like a great blank wall, came into view. For a moment he swivelled the light up and down but the beam could not reach its top and any ornamentations which it might once have had the waters had long since erased into a uniform smoothness.

As the sphere turned further the beam lit up an irregular pile of stones. All their corners and edges were rounded but they still suggested square and oblong blocks of masonry. Opposite the row of columns came a blank space where little was visible except the shadowy outline of more great monoliths in the distance; then a long smooth slope running upwards from the sea bottom at an angle of about thirty degrees and quite different in appearance from it. A dull iridescent sparkle which showed as the searchlight moved across its polished surface made it seem likely that it was a vast slab of granite. The columns appeared again and they had completed the circle.

'We are much handicapped,' remarked the Doctor, 'that the ship above can no longer move us as directed. I haf wished to make a tour of at least an hour before deciding the better place for excavation but we must drill here or not at all—so let us be busy.'

With Count Axel's help the drilling machine was set in motion at the base of the nearest column, which was quite near them. Inside the sphere they could not hear the faintest murmur as it bored into the solidified lava and the indicator on a small dial near the door was the only means of knowing when it had completed the first hole. A charge of explosive was inserted down a tube by an automatic loader, with an electric wire attached which could be reeled out as the bathysphere was drawn up, then the drill was set to work upon another boring.

All the time these operations were in progress fish came and went beyond the windows, flitting like ghostly shadows in and out of the bright beam. A sabre-toothed Viper fish snapped its wicked jaws within a few inches of Sally's face, but on touching the fused quartz, whipped off again, startled perhaps by this invisible barrier. The shrimps at this depth were big fellows eight to ten inches in length. They appeared to be bright scarlet with jet black eyes whereas, at about 1,500 feet the McKay had noticed that they were only pale pink and near the surface a transparent white. Seven black jellies came bobbing along in an uneven row and then a large umbrella-like pink one with luminous spots at the base of each of its threadlike tentacles. Nearly every creature seemed to possess its own lighting apparatus, some having a coppery or silvery iridescence over their whole bodies, others luminous teeth, or portholes in their sides; only the Palid Sailfins and Eels showed no illumination. For an hour, that ghostly shadow dance, lit by displays of ever changing coloured fireworks, went on without a second's interruption, then the Doctor reported the first borings to be completed and Nicky asked Oscar, who had taken over the deck end of the telephone, to have the sphere pulled up 300 feet.

As they ascended the McKay noticed that they were not going up quite straight but at an angle and, for a second, he feared that the sphere would be dashed against the solid wall upon their right.

His mouth set tight as he waited for instant oblivion to overwhelm them. He had just time to think grimly that this was the sort of unexpected calamity which he had visualised, when the wall top came into view six feet away and they passed clear above it. The whole episode was over so quickly that the others had failed even to realise the danger and the narrowness of their escape.

The wires connected with the charges in the bore holes had reeled out automatically as they rose and when they halted the Doctor put his hand on the lever to explode them.

'It's no good I'm afraid.' The McKay shook his head. 'We only remained stationary on the bottom because the drill and the claws held us. The ship is drifting to eastward slightly, and as she is not under power they won't be able to tow us back to the place we've mined.'

The Doctor grunted with disappointment. 'I will explode the charges all the same,' he said after a moment. 'We may see the effect perhaps when we descend again even if we cannot collect the debris.'

No faintest sound came to indicate that the explosion had taken place when the Doctor pressed the lever of the detonator but, just after, the bathysphere lifted slightly as the water was forced upwards, then settled till the cable took its weight again with a very gentle jerk. Nicky requested that they should be lowered and six minutes later they came to rest on the bottom.

They turned the bathysphere on its own axis and could not recognise any of the stone masses as those which they had seen before. A faint cloudiness at one point, seen in the extreme end of the searchlight's beam, indicated the probable direction of their previous position, as the explosion would have pulverised some of the stone and lava into fine dust, but they were too far off to glimpse the row of columns.

Further mining operations were obviously useless so it was decided to rise thirty feet and then drift with the ship. For the next twenty-five minutes they moved very slowly to the westward passing through two huge pillars and then across a comparatively open space, at one side of which great blocks and hummocks were vaguely discernable in the distance.

The McKay estimated that they were drifting at about 200 yards an hour and he explained that in addition to the kedge anchors, which Captain Ardow had thrown out, the bathysphere was acting as a super kedge which assisted in slowing up the ship's movement. Even at this low speed their position must have altered at least a mile and a half since the Doctor and Nicky had found the Atlantean remains the previous afternoon—if they had been shifting steadily in one direction. The wind had changed twice however so the probability was that they were still within a mile of the spot over which the ship had been when Count Axel staged his explosion, but it was possible of course that the ruins of the sunken city covered a much greater area.

A large headed rat-tailed macrourid a foot in length and with at least six lights had paused to peer in at the window when, without warning, the sphere suddenly began to rise.

'Oh, what's happening?' cried Camilla in a frightened voice. 'I do pray that there's not another storm approaching. Ask Nicky—ask why they are pulling us up.'

Nicky asked, paused for a moment, then said with a start, 'Ah—what's that?'

'Tell us. I'd much rather know the worst,' Camilla urged him.

'It's the worst all right,' he muttered. 'Oscar says that Kate's just come on board and wants to see us.'

'Oh heavens 1' exclaimed Sally, 'I knew this would happen. What are we going to do?'

'Steady m'dear,' the McKay took her hand and pressed it. 'Kate won't try and eat you. Besides the tender should be alongside by now and we'll—' He broke off suddenly as he remembered the Bozo was within six feet of him, placed there by Slinger for the special purpose of reporting any further measures against their captors which they might be indiscreet enough to discuss in his hearing.

'How can the tender help? Its crew won't be armed and it would be hours before they could get us assistance. Whereas Kate's there—already—up on deck—waiting for us,' Sally burst out excitedly.

'But what are you so scared he's going to do to you m'dear?'

'Oh, I don't know—I don't know. But he's found out about that will and he'll be furious. You know that horrid cold merciless stare of his.'