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“But my laugh was answered by a shriek. A man lashed with a turn of rope around his waist to the stump of the mizzenmast, was writhing and heaving on his back, while he struck with his knife, apparently at his own body. With my own knife in my hand I sprang toward him, and felt for what had seized him. It was something cold, and hard, and leathery, close to his waist.

“Carefully gauging my stroke, I lunged with the knife, but I hardly think it entered the invisible fin, or tail, or paw of the monster; but it moved away from the screaming man, and the next moment I received a blow in the face that sent me aft six feet, flat on my back. Then came unconsciousness.

“When I recovered my senses the remnant of the crew were around me, but the man was gone–dragged out of the bight of the rope that had held him against the force of breaking seas, and down to the flooded main deck, to die like the others. It was too dark to see, or do anything; so, when I could speak I ordered all hands but one into the flooded cabin where, in the upper berths and on the top of the table, were a few dry spots.

“I filled and lighted a lantern, and gave it to the man on watch with instructions to hang it to the stump of the mizzen and to call his relief at the end of four hours. Then, with doors and windows closed, we went to sleep, or tried to go to sleep. I succeeded first, I think, for up to the last of consciousness I could hear the mutterings of the men; when I awakened, they were all asleep, and the cabin clock, high above the water, told me that, though it was still dark, it was six in the morning.

“I went on deck; the lantern still burned at the stump of mizzenmast but the lookout was gone. He had not lived long enough to be relieved, as I learned by going below and finding that no one had been called.

“We were but six, now–one sailor and the bos’n, the cook and steward, the professor and myself.”

The old artist paused, while he refilled and lighted his pipe. I noticed that the hand that held the match shook perceptibly, as though the memories of that awful experience had affected his nerves. I know that the recital had affected mine; for I joined him in a smoke, my hands shaking also.

“Why,” I asked, after a moment of silence, “if it was a deep-sea creature, did it not die from the lesser pressure at the surface?”

“Why do not men die on the mountaintops?” he answered. “Or up in balloons? The record is seven miles high, I think; but they lived. They suffered from cold, and from lack of oxygen–that is, no matter how fast, or deeply they breathed, they could not get enough. But the lack of pressure did not trouble them; the human body can adjust itself.

“Conversely, however, an increase of pressure may be fatal. A man dragged down more than one hundred and fifty feet may be crushed; and a surface fish sent to the bottom of the sea may die from the pressure. It is simple; it is like the difference between a weight lifted from us and a weight added.”

“Did this thing kill any more men?” I asked.

“All but the professor and myself, and it almost killed me. Look here.”

He removed his cravat and collar, pulled down his shirt, and exposed two livid scars about an inch in diameter, and two apart.

“I lost all the blood I could spare through those two holes,” he said, as he readjusted his apparel; “but I saved enough to keep me alive.”

“Go on with the yarn,” I asked. “I promise you I will not sleep to-night.”

“Perhaps I will not sleep myself,” he answered, with a mournful smile. “Some things should be forgotten, but as I have told you this much I may as well finish, and be done with it.