was a flashlight. The scientist risked his life on a
guess. He thrust the powerful light into the clinging serpent. It was
like the touch of hot iron to human flesh. The arm struggled and flailed
in a paroxysm of pain.

Thurston was free. He lay gasping on the sand. But MacGregor!... He
looked up to see him vanish in the clinging ooze. Another thick tentacle
had been projected from the main mass to sweep like a whip about the
man. It hissed as it whirled about him in the still air.

The flashlight was gone; Thurston's hand touched it in the sand. He
sprang to his feet and pressed the switch. No light responded; the
flashlight was out--broken.

A thick arm slashed and wrapped about him.... It beat him to the ground.
The sand was moving beneath him; he was being dragged swiftly,
helplessly, toward what waited in the shadow. He was smothering.... A
blinding glare filled his eyes....

* * * * *

The flares were still burning when he dared look about. MacGregor was
pulling frantically at his arm. "Quick--quick!" he was shouting.
Thurston scrambled to his feet.

One glimpse he caught of a heaving yellow mass in the white light; it
twisted in horrible convulsions. They ran stumblingly--drunkenly--toward
the car.

Riley was half out of the machine. He had tried to drag himself to their
assistance. "I couldn't make it," he said: "then I thought of the
flares."

"Thank Heaven," said MacGregor with emphasis, "it was your legs that
were paralyzed, Riley, not your brain."

Thurston found his voice. "Let me have that Very pistol. If light hurts
that damn thing, I am going to put a blaze of magnesium into the middle
of it if I die for it."

"They're all gone," said Riley.

"Then let's get out of here. I've had enough. We can come back later
on."

He got back of the wheel and slammed the door of the sedan. The
moonlight was gone. The darkness was velvet just tinged with the gray
that precedes the dawn. Back in the deeper blackness at the cliff-base a
phosphorescent something wavered and glowed. The light rippled and
flowed in all directions over the mass. Thurston felt, vaguely, its
mystery--the bulk was a vast, naked brain; its quiverings were like
visible thought waves....

* * * * *

The phosphorescence grew brighter. The thing was approaching. Thurston
let in his clutch, but the scientist checked him.

"Wait," he implored, "wait! I wouldn't miss thi