They came to the top, battered from their fall, but able to dive under a
wave and emerge again near one another.

"Swim!" urged Sykes. "Swim out! They may get us here--recover our
bodies--resuscitate us. And that wouldn't do!"

Another wave, and the two men were swimming beyond it; swimming feebly
but steadily out from shore, while above them a great cylinder of
shining metal swept past in a circling flight. They kept on while their
eyes, from the wave tops, saw it turn and come slowly back in a long
smooth descent.

It was a hundred feet above the water a short way out at sea, and the
two men made feeble motions with arms and legs, while their eyes
exchanged glances of dismay.

* * * * *

A door had opened in the round under-surface, and a figure, whose
gas-suit made it a bloated caricature of a man, was lowered from beneath
in a sling. From the stern of the ship gaseous vapor belched downward to
spread upon the surface of the water. The wind was bringing the misty
cloud toward them. "The gas!" said McGuire despairingly. "It will knock
us out, and then that devil will get us! They'll take us back! Our last
chance--gone!"

"God help us!" said Sykes weakly. "We can't--even--die--" His feeble
strokes stopped, and he sank beneath the water. McGuire's last picture
as he too sank and the waters closed over his head, was the shining ship
hovering beyond.

He wondered only vaguely at the sudden whirling of water around him. A
solid something was rising beneath his dragging feet; a firm, solid
support that raised him again to the surface. He realized dimly the air
about him, the sodden form of Professor Sykes some few feet distant. His
numbed brain was trying to comprehend what else the eyes beheld.

A metal surface beneath them rose higher, shining wet, above the water;
a metal tube raised suddenly from its shield, to swing in quick aim upon
the enemy ship approaching from above.

His eyes moved to the ship, and to the man-thing below in the sling. Its
clothes were a mass of flame, and the figure itself was falling headlong
through the air. Above the blazing body was the metal of the ship
itself, and it sagged and melted to a liquid fire that poured, splashing
and hissing, to the waters beneath. In the wild panic the great shape
threw itself into the air; it swept out and up in curving flight to
plunge headlong into the depths....

The gas was drifting close, as McGuire saw an ope