erve," admonished the slow, careful sending of the
_Bennington's_ operator. "We have been delayed but we are on our way.
Signed, Brent."

The man in the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, and
tried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extra
clips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinking
sun, and he watched from within his cage the coming of the quick dark.

The protecting glare of day must be unbearable to this monster from
the lightless depths, and daylight was vanishing. Thorpe's mind was
searching for additional means of defense. He found it in the cargo he
had seen. The drums of carbide! He could scatter it on the deck--it
reacted with water, and those slimy arms, if they came and touched it,
could find the contact hot. He took his lantern and went hastily below
to stagger back with a drum upon his shoulder.

In the half-light that was left him he forced the cover and then
rolled the drum about the swaying deck. The gray, earthly lumps of
carbide formed erratic lines. Useless perhaps, he admitted, but the
threatening dark forced the man to use every means at his command.

* * * * *

He was scattering the contents of a second drum when he stiffened
abruptly to rigid attention.

The ship, thrown broadside to the wide-spaced swells, had rolled
endlessly with a monotonous motion. But now the deck beneath him was
steadying. It assumed an abnormal levelness. The boat rose and fell
with the waves, but it no longer rolled. There was something beneath
holding, drawing on it.

Thorpe knew in that frozen second what it meant. The drum clattered to
the rail as he dashed for his room. Gun in hand, he watched with
staring eyes where the deserted deck showed dim and vague in the light
of the stars and the bow of the ship was lost in the uncertain dark of
night.

Wide-eyed he watched into the blackness, and he listened with
desperate attention for some slightest sound beyond the splashing of
waves and the creaking of spars.

Far in the west a light appeared, to glow and vanish and glow again in
the tumbling waters. The _Bennington_! His heart leaped at the
thought, then sank as he knew the destroyer's lights would not appear
from that direction.

Through a slow hour that seemed an eternity the oncoming ship drew
near, and he knew with a sudden, startling certainty that it was the
_Adelaide_--and Ruth Allaire--coming on, through int