et it. Even then it's fearfully
uncertain. I hate to try it, but it's the only chance.

"You can find out?"

"Yes. From the spectral shift and other factors. I'll have to get some
other apparatus." He ran up to the laboratory, across the level field
that lay black beneath the stars. He came back, panting, with
spectrometer, terrestrial globe, and other articles.

"The tide is higher!" he cried as he looked through the blue-rimmed
circle at the girl on the rock. "She'll be swept off before long!"

He mounted the spectrometer and fell to work with a will, taking
observations through the telescope, adjusting prisms and diffraction
gratings, reading electrometers and other apparatus, and stopping to
make intricate calculations.

I helped him when I could, or stared through the ring of shining blue
mist, where I could see the waves breaking higher about the exhausted
girl who clung to the rock. Clouds of wind-whipped spray often hid her
from sight. I knew that she would not have the strength to hold on
much longer against the force of the rising sea.

Although driven almost to distraction by the horror of her
predicament, he worked with a cool, swift efficiency. Only the pale,
anxiety-drawn expression on his face showed how great was the strain.
He finished the last spectrometer observation, snatched out a pad and
fell to figuring furiously.

"Something queer here," he said presently, frowning. "A shift of the
spectrum that I can't explain by distortion through three-dimensional
space alone. I don't understand it."

We stared at the chilled and trembling girl on the rock.

"I'm almost afraid to try it. What if something went wrong?"

He turned to the terrestrial globe he had brought down and traced a
line over it. He made a quick calculation on his pad, then made a fine
dot on the globe with the pencil point.

"Here she is. On a rock some miles off Point Eugenia, on the coast of
the Mexican State of Lower California. Most lonely spot in the world.
No chance for a rescue. We must--

"My god!" he screamed in sudden horror. "Look!"

* * * * *

I looked through the blue-ringed window and saw the girl. Green water
was surging about her waist. It seemed that each wave almost tore her
off. Then I saw that she was struggling with something. A great
coiling tentacle, black and leathery and glistening, was thrust up
out of the green water. It wavered deliberately through the air and
gra