Ken pointed it out to the captain.

"Look!" he said. "A leak already--just from the pressure! This door won't last more than a couple of minutes when they start on it--"

Sallorsen stared stupidly. As for the rest; Ken might not have spoken.

They were as if in a trance, watching dumbly, with lungs automatically gasping for air.

One of the seal-creatures eeled through the shattered quarsteel of the first door and swam slowly around the newly flooded compartment. At once it was joined by five other lithe, sleek shapes which, with placid, liquid eyes, inspected the compartment minutely. They came in a group right up to the next door that barred their way and, with no visible emotion, stared through the quarsteel pane at the humans who stared at them. And then they gracefully turned and slid to the battered torpoon.

"Back!" Ken shouted, "You men!" He shook them, shoved them roughly back toward the fourth, and last, compartment. Weakly, like automatons they shuffled into it. The torpooner said bruskly to Sallorsen:

"Carry those tins of food back. Hurry! Is there anything stored in here we'll need? Sallorsen! Captain! Is there anything--"

The captain looked at him dully; then, understanding, a cackle came from his throat. "Don't need anything. This is the end. Last compartment. Finish!"

"Snap out of it!" Ken cried. "Come on, Sallorsen--there's a chance yet. Is there anything we'll need in here?"

"Sea-suits--in those lockers."

Ken Torrance swung around and rapidly opened the lockers. Pulling out the bulky suits, he cried:

"You carry that food back. Then come and help me."

But of the corner of his eye, as he worked, he could see the ominous preparations beyond in the flooded compartment--the sealmen raising the torpoon, guiding it back to the far end; leveling it out. Ken was sure the door could not stand more than two or three blows at the most. Two or three minutes, that meant--but all the sea-suits had to go back into the fourth compartment!

He was in torment as he worked. For him, the conditions were just as bad as for the men who had lived below in the submarine for a month; the poisonous, foul air racked him just as much; what breath he got he fought for just as painfully. But in his body was a greater store of strength, and fresher muscles; and he taxed his body to its very limit.

Panting, his head seeming on the point of splitting, Ken Torrance stumbled through into the last compartment laden with a pile of sea-suits. He dropped them clattering in a pile around his feet and forced himself back again. Another trip; and another....

It would never have been done had not Sallorsen and Lawson, the scientist, come to his aid. The help they offered was meager, and slow, but it sufficed. Laden for the fifth time, Ken heard what he had been antic.i.p.ating for every second of the all too short, agonizing minutes: a sharp, grinding crack, and the following reverberation. He s.n.a.t.c.hed a glance around to see the torpoon falling to the deck of the second compartment--the sealmen lifting it swiftly again--and a thin but definite sliver in the quarsteel of the door.

But the last suit was gotten into the fourth compartment, and the connecting door closed and carefully locked and bolted. The removal of the suits, had been achieved--but what now?

Panting, completely exhausted, Ken forced his brain to the question.

From every side he attacked the problem, but nowhere could he find the loophole he sought. Everything, it seemed, had been tried, and had failed, during the _Peary's_ long captivity. There was nothing left.

True, he had his torpoon, and its nitro-sh.e.l.l gun with a clip of nineteen sh.e.l.ls; but what use were sh.e.l.ls? Even if each one accounted for one of the sealmen, there would still remain a swarm.

And the sea-suits. He had struggled for them and had saved them, but what use could he put them to? Go out leading a desperate final sally for the hole in the ice above? Death in minutes!

No hope. Nothing. Not even a fighting chance. These seal-creatures, strange seed of the Arctic ice, had trapped the _Peary_ all too well.

On the roll of mysteriously missing ships would her name go down; and he, Ken Torrance, would be considered a lunatic who had sought suicide, and found it....

Of the twenty-one survivors of the _Peary's_ officers and crew, only a dozen had the will to watch the inexorable advance of the sealmen. The rest lay in various att.i.tudes on the deck of the rear compartment, showing no sign of life save torturous, shallow pantings for air and, occasionally, spasmodic clutchings at their throats and chests, as they tried to fight off the deadly, invisible foe that was slowly strangling them.

Ken Torrance, Sallorsen, the scientist, Lawson, and a few others were pressed together at the last watertight door, peering through the quarsteel at the sea-creatures' systematic a.s.sault on the door leading into the third compartment. A straight, hard smash at it; another final splintering smash--and again the torpoon pushed through in the van of a cascade of icy, greenish water, which quickly claimed the control compartment for the attackers behind. The creatures were growing bolder. More and more of them had entered the submarine, and soon each open compartment was filled from deck to ceiling with the slowly turning, graceful brown bodies, inspecting minutely the countless wheels and levers and gauges, and inspecting also, in turns, the pale, worn faces that stared with dull eyes at them through the sole remaining door.

There was no further retreat, now. Behind was only water and the swarm that pa.s.sed to and fro through it. Water and sealmen--ahead, above, to the sides, behind--everywhere. Cooped in their transparent cell, the crew of the submarine _Peary_ waited the end.

Once more, as well as he could with his throbbing head and heavy, choking body, Kenneth Torrance tracked over the old road that had brought him nowhere, but was the only road open. Carefully he took stock of everything he had that he might possibly fight with.

There were sea-suits for the men, and in each suit an hour's supply of artificial but invigorating air. Two port-locks, one on each side of the stern compartment. A torpoon, with a gun and nineteen sh.e.l.ls.

Nothing else? There seemed to be, in his mind, a vague memory of something else ... something that might possibly be of use ...

something.... But he could not remember. Again and again the agony of slow strangulation he was going through drove everything but the consciousness of pain from his shirking mind. But there was something else--and perhaps it was the key. Perhaps if he could only remember it--whatever it was--whether a tangible thing or merely a pa.s.sing idea of hours ago--the way out would be suddenly revealed.

But he could not remember. He had the sea-suits, the port-locks and the torpoon: what possible pattern could he weave them into to bring deliverance?

No, there was nothing. Not even a girder that could be unfastened in time to brace the last door. No way of prolonging this last stand!

Beside Ken, the strained, panting voice of Lawson whispered:

"Getting ready. Over soon now. All over."

All save five of the sealmen had left the third compartment, to join the swarm constantly swimming around and over the submarine outside.

The five remaining were the crew for the battering ram. With measured and deliberate movements they ranged their lithe bodies beside the torpoon, lifted it and bore it smoothly back to the far end of the compartment. There they poised for a minute, while from the men watching sounded a pathetic sigh of antic.i.p.ation.

As one, the five seal-creatures lunged forward with their burden.

_Crash!_ And the following dull reverberation.

The last a.s.sault had begun.

CHAPTER VI

_In a Biscuit Can_

Ken Torrance glanced with dull, hopeless eyes over the compartment he stood in. Figures stretched out all over the deck, gasping, panting, strangling--men waiting in agony for death. His head sank down, and he wiped wet hands across his aching forehead. Nothing to do but wait--wait for the end--wait as the patient horde outside had been waiting in the sea-gloom for their moment of triumph, when the soft bodies inside the _Peary_ would be theirs to rip and mangle....

A dragging sound brought Ken's eyes wearily up and to the side. One of the crew who had been lying on the deck was dragging his body painfully toward a row of lockers at one side of the compartment. The man's eyes were feverishly intent on the lockers.

Ken watched his progress dully, without thinking, as inch by inch he forced himself through the other bodies sprawled in his way. He saw him reach the lockers, and for a minute, gasping, lie there. He saw a clawing arm stretch almost up to the catch on one locker, while the man whimpered like a child at his lack of quick success.

_Crash!_ The grinding blow of the torpoon hitting the quarsteel clanged out from behind. But Ken's mind was all on the reaching man's strange actions. He saw the fingers at last succeed in touching the catch. The door of the locker opened outward, and eagerly the man reached inside and pulled. With a thump, a row of heavy objects strung together rolled out onto the deck--and Ken Torrance sprang suddenly to the man's side:

"What are you doing?" he cried.

The man looked up sullenly. He mumbled:

"d.a.m.n fish--won't get me. I'll blow us all to h.e.l.l, first!"