* * *

The seaman nodded and sat silent for a moment as though marshaling his
thoughts.

"The story really starts the afternoon of May 12th," he said, "although
I didn't realize the importance of the first incident at the time. We
were steaming along at good speed, hoping to make New York before too
late for quarantine, when a hail came from the forward lookout. I was on
watch and I went forward to see what was the matter. The lookout was
Louis Green, an able bodied seaman and a good one, but a confirmed
drunkard. I asked him what the trouble was and he turned toward me a
face that was haggard with terror.

"'I've seen a sea serpent, Mr. Mitchell,' he said.

"'Nonsense!' I replied sharply. 'You've been drinking again.'

"He swore that he hadn't and I asked him to describe what he had seen.
His teeth were chattering so that he could hardly speak, but he gasped
out a story about seeing a monstrous head, a half mile across, he said,
with a long snake body stretching out over the sea until the end of it
was lost on the horizon. I turned my glass in the direction he pointed
and of course there was nothing to be seen. The man's condition was such
as to make him worse than useless as a lookout, so I relieved him and
ordered him below. I took it for a touch of delirium tremens.

"We were bucking a head wind, although not a very stiff one, and we
didn't make port until after dark, so we anchored at quarantine, just
off Staten Island, in forty fathoms of water, and Captain Murphy radioed
for a Coast Guard boat to come out and lay by us for the night. As you
have probably heard, we were carrying four millions in bar gold
consigned to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from the Bank of
England."

* * * * *

Dr. Bird and Carnes nodded. The inexplicable loss of the _Arethusa_ had
occupied much space in the papers ten days earlier.

"The cutter came out, signalled, and dropped anchor about three hundred
yards away. So far, everything was exactly as it should be. I walked to
the stern of the boat and looked out across the Atlantic and then I
realized that Green wasn't the only one who could see things. The wind
had fallen and it was getting pretty dark, but not too dark to see
things a pretty good distance away. As I looked I saw, or thought I saw,
a huge black leathery mass come to the surface a mile or so away. There
were two things on it that looked like eyes, and I had a feeli