"Did they kill any more of the sealmen?"

"One. Just one. That made two of them--six of us. What the h.e.l.l are the rest of them waiting for?" Sallorsen cried. "They killed eight in all! To our two! That's enough for them, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid not," said Ken Torrance. "Well, what then?"

"Sat down and thought. Carefully. Hit on a plan. Took one of our two torpoons. Lashed on it steel plates, ground to sharp cutting edges.

Spent days at it. Thought torpoon could go out and cut the ropes.

Haines volunteered and we shot him and torpoon out."

"They got the torpoon?" Ken asked.

Sallorsen's arm raised in a pointing gesture. "Look."

Some fifty feet away from the _Peary_, on the side opposite to the one Ken Torrance had approached, a dimly discernible object lay in the mud. In miniature, it resembled the submarine: a cigar-shaped steel sh.e.l.l, held down to the sea-bottom by ropes bound over it. Cutting edges of steel had been fastened along its length.

"I see," said Ken slowly. "And its pilot?"

"Stayed in the torpoon thirty-six hours. Then went crazy. Put on sea-suit and tried to get back here. Whisk--they got him. Killed and mangled while we watched!"

"But didn't his torpoon have a nitro-sh.e.l.l gun? Couldn't he have fought them off for a time?"

"Exploring submarine, this! No guns in torpoons like whalers. Gun wouldn't help, anyway. These devils too fast. No use. No hope anywhere...." Sallorsen sank back against the bulkhead, his lips moving but no sound coming forth. Dully he stared ahead, through the submarine, for a moment before uttering a cackling mockery of a laugh and going on.

"Even after that, still hoped! Blew every tank on ship; blew out most of her oil. Threw out everything not vital. Lightened her as much as could.

Machinery--detachable metal--fixtures--baggage--instruments--knives, plates, cups--everything! She rose a couple of feet--no more! Put motors at full speed--back and forth--again, again, again. Buoyancy--power--no good. No d.a.m.n good!

"And then we tried the last chance. Explosives. Had quite a store, Nitromite, packed in cases; time-fuses to set it off. Had it for blasting ice. I sent up a charge and blew hole in the ice overhead, for our other torpoon.

"Nothing else left. Knew planes must be nearby, searching. Last torpoon was to shoot up to the hole--pilot to climb on ice and stay there to signal a plane."

"Did he get there?"

"h.e.l.l no!" Sallorsen cackled again. "It was roped like the other.

Pilot tried to get back, but they got him like first. There's the torpoon--out ahead."

Ken could just make it out. It lay ahead, slightly to port, lashed down like its fellow by seaweed-ropes. His eyes were held by it, even when Sallorsen continued, in an almost hysterical voice:

"Since then--since then--you know. Week after week. Air getting worse.

Rectifiers running down. No night, no day. Just the lights, and those d.a.m.ned devils outside. Wore sea-suits for a while; used twenty-nine of their thirty hours air-units. Old Professor Halloway died, and another man. Couldn't do anything for 'em. Just sit and watch. Head aching, throat choking--G.o.d!...

"Some of the men went mad. Tried to break out. Had to show gun. Quick death outside. Here, slow death, but always the chance that--Chance, h.e.l.l! There's no chance left! Just this poison that used to be air, and those things outside, watching, watching, waiting--waiting for us to leave--waiting to get us all! Waiting...."

"Something's up!" said Ken Torrance suddenly. "They've got tired of waiting!"

CHAPTER V

_The Last a.s.sault_

Sallorsen turned his head and followed the torpooner's intent, amazed gaze.

Ken said:

"There's proof of their intelligence! I've been watching--didn't realize at first. Look, here it comes!"

Several sealmen, while Sallorsen had been talking, had come dropping down from the main ma.s.s of the horde, and had grouped around the abandoned torpoon which lay some feet ahead of the submarine's bow.

Expertly they had loosened the seaweed-ropes which bound it to the sea-floor, then slid back, watching alertly, as if expecting the torpoon to speed away of its own accord. Its batteries, of course, had worn out weeks before, so the steel sh.e.l.l did net budge. The sealmen came down close to it again, and lifted it.

They lifted it easily with their prehensile flipper-arms, and with maneuvering of delicate sureness guided it through the gash in the _Peary's_ bow. Inside, they hesitated with it, midway between deck and ceiling of the flooded compartment. They poised for perhaps a full minute, judging the distance, while the two men stared; and then quickly their powerful tail flippers lashed out and the torpoon jumped ahead. It sped straight through the water, to crash its tough nose of steel squarely into the quarsteel pane of the watertight door, then rebounded, and fell to the deck.

"My G.o.d!" gasped Sallorsen. But Ken wasted no words then. He pressed closer to the quarsteel and examined it minutely. The substance showed no visible effect, but the action of the sealmen destroyed whatever hope he had felt.

The sealmen had swerved aside at the last minute; and now, picking up the torpoon again and guiding it back to the other end of the compartment, they hurled it once more with a resounding crash into the quarsteel pane.

"How long will it last under that?" Ken asked tersely.

Obviously, Sallorsen's wits were muddled at this turn. He remained gaping at the creatures and at the torpoon, now turned against its mother submarine. Ken repeated the question.

"How long? Who knows? It's as strong as steel, but--there's the pressure--and those blows. .h.i.t one spot. Not--long."

Capping his words, there re-echoed again the loud crash of the torpoon's on the quarsteel. The sealmen were working in quick routine now; back and quickly forward, and then the crash and the reverberation; and again and again....

The ominous crash and ringing echoes regularly repeated, seemed to disorganise Ken's mind as he looked vainly for something with which to brace the door. Nothing unattached was left--nothing! He ran and examined the quarsteel pane again, and this time his brain heated in alarm. A thin line had shot through the quarsteel--the beginning of a crack.

"Back!" Ken shouted to the still staring Sallorsen. "Back to the third compartment. This door's going!"

"Yes," Sallorsen mumbled. "It'll go. So will the others. They'll smash them all. And when this is flooded--no hope of running the submarine again. Controls in here."

"That's too d.a.m.ned bad!" Ken said roughly. "Are there any sea-suits, food, supplies in here?"

"Only food. In those lockers."

"I'll take it. Get into that third compartment--hear me?" ordered Kenneth Torrance. "And have its door ready to close!"

He shoved Sallorsen away, opened the indicated lockers and piled his arms with the tins revealed. He had time for no more than one load. He jumped back into the third compartment of the _Peary_ just as a splintering crash sounded from behind. The door between was swung closed and locked just as the one being battered crashed inward.

Turning, Ken saw that the torpoon had cracked through the weakened quarsteel and tumbled in a mad cascade of water to the deck of the abandoned second compartment. In dread silence, he, with Sallorsen and those of the men who had strength and curiosity enough to come forward, watched the compartment rapidly fill--watched until they saw the water pressed high against the door. And then horror swept over Ken Torrance.

Water! There was a trickle of water down the quarsteel he was leaning against! A fault along the hinge of the door--either its construction, or because it had not been closed properly.