-they're devilish strong, Taylor. And, at close range, I can
see you were right. They have true gill-covers; their noses are
rudimentary and--"

"The devil take your scientific observations! Drag! Slow them down.
I'm losing sight of you. For heaven's sake, drag!"

"I'm doing what I can. Damn you, if I could only get a hand free--" I
realized that this last was directed at his captors, and plunged on.

* * * * *

Huge, monstrous growths swirled around me like living things. My feet
crunched on shelled things, and sank into soft and slimy creeping
things on the bottom. I cursed the water that held me back so gently
yet so firmly; I cursed the armor that made it so hard for me to move
my legs. But I kept on, and at last I began to gain on them; I could
see them quite distinctly, bending over Mercer, working on him....

"Do your best, Taylor," urged Mercer desperately. "We're on the edge
of a sort of cliff; a fault in the structure of the ocean bed. They're
tying me with strong cords of leather. Tying a huge stone to my body.
I think they--" I had a momentary flash of the scene as Mercer saw it
at that instant: the horrid noseless face close to his, the swart
bodies moving with amazing agility. And at his very feet, a yawning
precipice, holding nothing but darkness, leading down and down into
nothingness.

"Run quickly!" It was Imee. She, too, had seen what I had seen. "That
is the Place of Darkness, where we take those whom the Five deem
worthy of the Last Punishment. They will tie the stone to him, and
bear him out above the Blackness, and then they will let him go!
Quickly! Quickly!"

I was almost upon them now, and one of the six turned and saw me.
Three of them darted towards me, while the others held Mercer flat
upon the edge of the precipice. If they had only realized that by
rolling his armored body a foot or two, he would sink ... without the
stone.... But they did not. Their brains had little reasoning power,
apparently. The attaching of a stone was necessary, in their
experience; it was necessary now.

* * * * *

With my left hand I unhooked my light; I already gripped my knife in
my right hand. Swinging the light sharply against my leg, I struck the
toggle-switch, and a beam of intense brilliancy shot through the
gloom. It aided me, as I had thought it would; it blinded these
large-eyed denizens of the deep.

Swiftly I struck out with the