red, snatched off by
the panic-stricken crowd. The deck cabins, though yawning and seamed,
were so firmly stanchioned that he could not drag out so much as a
plank. The skylights were unloosed. There was nothing. Again the deck
beneath them gave that convulsive, shivering lurch.

"Mona, darling," he whispered, "act now with that splendid courage you
showed before. I will not leave go of you, but don't clutch me or
struggle. We shall go down, but we shall come up again. Now--come."

But before he could gain the side of the ship with her there was an
angry, seething swirl--and there leaped out of the gloom and mist in
front huge wreaths, white and spectral, and hissing like snakes. Then
with this appalling spectacle their footing gave way, and it seemed as
if they were being whirled up into the very heavens. The after-part of
the great hull reared itself aloft, and with a roaring, thunderous
plunge, the _Scythian_ disappeared from mortal sight for ever.

Down, down, into the farther depths--down, down, ever down, with a
vibrating and jarring and crashing as of the destruction of ten million
worlds. The weight of ten million worlds seemed upon these two, as,
socked down in the vortex of the foundering ship, the swiftly flashing
brain realised the terrific, the soul-curdling barrier that lay between
them and the upper air. Down, down--ever down--down through those
roaring, jarring realms of space and of darkness, of black and rayless
night.

Never for the fraction of an instant did Roden relax his grasp; never in
that swift, sickening engulfment, while dragged down and down to the
black depths of creation; never, as the starry fires of suffocation
dared and scintillated before his strained and bursting eyeballs. Never
would he; for even the last awful struggle of dissolution should but
rivet the embrace tighter. Then the engulfment, the suction, seemed to
slacken. A vigorous effort, and he felt himself rising; yes, distinctly
rising. Ha! air! light! yet not light. With a rush as of a bird
through the air, he--they--soared up from that vast ocean depth, gaining
the upper air once more.

Then in nameless fear he put his ear to her lips. Was she still
living--or had she succumbed to that long suffocating immersion? A
faint sigh escaped her breast; but that little sound caused his heart to
leap with a wild and thrilling ecstasy. She lived--lived still. And
then, drawing her closer to him as they floated