over five miles deep--and I suppose you
know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this
headland. The British exploring vessel, _Gull_, Captain Marotte,
discovered and sounded it, I believe. Anyway, it's there, and it's my
belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the
last race of amphibious human beings!"

This was childish; I did not bother to reply.

"Believe it or not, as you will," he said, angrily; "one thing I know,
and that is this: the harbor-master has taken to hanging around my
cove, and he is attracted by my nurse! I won't have it! I'll blow his
fishy gills out of his head if I ever get a shot at him! I don't care
whether it's homicide or not--anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it
attracts me!"

I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a
passion, and I did not choose to say what I thought.

"Yes, this slate-colored thing with gills goes purring and grinning
and spitting about after my nurse--when she walks, when she rows, when
she sits on the beach! Gad! It drives me nearly frantic. I won't
tolerate it, I tell you!"

"No," said I, "I wouldn't either." And I rolled over in bed convulsed
with laughter.

The next moment I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to
close the window, for the land-wind blew cold from the forest, and a
drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed.

That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out,
threw a trembling, nebulous radiance over sand and cove. I heard the
seething currents under the breakers' softened thunder--louder than I
ever heard it. Then, as I closed my window, lingering for a last look
at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle-deep, in the surf,
all alone there in the night. But--was it a man? For the figure
suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle,
waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window
again it darted into the surf, and, when I leaned out into the
chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the
coast--I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands.

V

It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the
great auks, by water, to Port-of-Waves, where a lumber schooner was to
be sent from Petite Sainte Isole, chartered by me for a voyage to New
York.

I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to
squat until they arrived at