soothed, "don't go to pieces--"

"I tell you I saw it!" I shouted. Then, shrinking from the hysterical
loudness of my own voice, I lowered my tone. "Something that looks human
has occupied some of those prickly, six-foot shells. I saw arms--and a
man's head! I swear it!"

"Nonsense! How could a human being stand the cold, the pressure--"

Here I happened to glance at the wall of the shell through which the
searchlight shone.

"Look! See for yourself!"

* * * * *

Squarely in the rays of the light showed a head, projecting from one of
the shells and capped with a wide flat helmet of horned bone.

There were eyes and nose and mouth placed on one side of that head--a
face! There were even tabs of flesh or bony protuberances that resembled
ears.

"Curious," muttered the Professor, staring. "It certainly looks human
enough to talk. But it's only a fish, nevertheless. See--in the throat
are gill slits."

"But the eyes! Look at them! They're not the eyes of a fish!"

And they were not. There was in them a light of reason, of intelligence.
Those eyes were roaming brightly over us, observing the light, the
equipment, seeming to note our amazement as we crowded to look at it.

The sphere rocked slightly. Behind the staring, manlike visitor there
was a glimpse of enormous, crocodile jaws and huge, amethyst eyes.
Instantly the head and arms receded, leaving an empty-seeming, lifeless
shell. An impregnable fortress of spines, the thing drifted slowly away
through the twisted loops of cable.

"It certainly looked like--" began Stanley shakily.

"The creature was just a fish," said the Professor shaking his head at
the light in Stanley's eyes. "Some sort of giant parasite that inhabits
the shells of other fish."

He opened the valve of the last air cylinder and seated himself
resignedly on the bench.

"We have another half hour or so--"

All of us suddenly put out our hands to brace ourselves. The sphere had
moved.

"Look at the cable!" called Stanley.

We did so. It was moving, writhing away from us over the bottom as
though abruptly given life of its own. Coil after coil disappeared into
the further gloom.

At length the cable was straight. The ball moved again--was dragged a
few feet along the rocky floor.

Something--possessed of incredibly vast power--had seized the end of the
steel cable and was reeling us in as a fisherman reels in a trout!

* * *