nt, you
know.'

"'But what can be done?' I asked helplessly, for I could not understand
at the time what he meant.

"'Nothing, except that der next man attacked must use his knife. If he
cannot see der creature, he can feel it. Und perhaps--I do not know
yet--perhaps, in a way, we may see it--its photograph.'

"I looked blankly at him, thinking he might have gone crazy, but he
continued.

"'You know,' he said, 'that objects too small to be seen by the
microscope, because smaller than der amplitude of der shortest wave of
visible light, can be seen when exposed to der ultraviolet light--der
dark light beyond der spectrum? Und you know that this light is what
acts der most in photography? That it exposes on a sensitized plate new
stars in der heavens invisible to der eye through the strongest
telescope?'

"'Don't know anything about it,' I answered. 'But if you can find a way
out of this scrape we're in, go ahead.'

"'I must think,' he said dreamily. 'I haf a rock-crystal lens which is
permeable to this light, und which I can place in mine camera. I must
have a concave mirror, not of glass, which is opaque to this light, but
of metal.'

"'What for?' I asked.

"'To throw der ultraviolet light on der beast. I can generate it with
mine static machine.'

"'How will one of our lantern reflectors do? They are of polished tin,
I think.'

"'Good! I can repolish one.'

"We had one deck lantern larger than usual, with a metallic reflector
that concentrated the light into a beam, much as do the present day
searchlights. This I procured from the lazaret, and he pronounced it
available. Then he disappeared, to tinker up his apparatus.

"Night came down, and I lighted three masthead lights, to hoist at the
fore to inform any passing craft that we were not under command; but,
as I would not send a man forward on that job, I went myself, carefully
feeling my way with the pike pole. Luckily, I escaped contact with the
creature, and returned to the poop, where we had a cold supper of
canned cabin stores.

"The top of the house was dry, but it was cold, especially so as we
were all drenched to the skin. The steward brought up all the blankets
there were in the cabin--for even a wet blanket is better than none at
all--but there were not enough to go around, and one man volunteered,
against my advice, to go forward and bring aft bedding from the
forecastle.

"He did not come back; we heard his yell, that finished with a g