CHAPTER X.
THE COMING OF THE GREAT FISH-LIZARD.
“HEAVEN grant they may return in safety!” muttered the engineer as his two friends vanished amid the fungi.
For a while after their departure he amused himself by gazing at the weird and glistening growths ashore; but ere long he grew tired of the monotonous gleam of the things.
They were so uncanny, so spectral in their splendour.
Securely fastening the turret door, he went below, determined to give his beloved engines a thorough clean.
Although to an unpractised eye the gleaming cranks and levers appeared spotless, the engineer found sufficient to occupy his attention for three hours, ascending at intervals during this period to the turret to assure himself that all was well.
Only when the engines glistened like burnished silver did Wilson cease his efforts; then, cleansing his grimy hands, he returned to the wheelhouse, to await the return of his comrades.
Little did he think what the future held in store for him; little he dreamed of the perils through which he was to pass ere he saw his friends again!
Slowly the hours dragged by, and there came no sign from the absent ones, and no sound broke the appalling, death-like silence of the underworld.
Once Wilson thought he heard a faint explosion, but the sound was too indistinct for him to judge with any certainty.
Within the boat and without all was silent as the grave.
To the lad’s excited imagination even the homely interior of the Seal seemed to partake of the ghostly character of her surroundings. Every plate in the vessel he knew, every bolt had been adjusted under his own supervision, yet he found himself continually fancying that queer noises came from below.
The eternal ticking of the saloon clock seemed to intensify the unnatural stillness. He craved for some noise—anything, he cared not what—as thirsty men crave for water, yet no sound came to him.
At length, unable to bear the strain longer, he flung open the door, and stepped out on to the deck.
For some time he paced to and fro, the ring of his boots upon the steel plates sounding cheerily in his ears.
Then suddenly he paused in his stride, and glanced sharply astern.
One hundred yards away a strange, rippling eddy appeared on the swell of the heaving water.
Remembering that the attack of the octopus had been heralded in like fashion, Wilson bolted into the turret and closed the door. A moment later, with face pressed against the glass, he was watching eagerly for developments.
“If it’s another squid,” he muttered, “I’m afraid he’s a trifle too late. That ripple gives the show away. By Jove! he’s keeping it up,” looking with surprise at the violently eddying water.
Still the water boiled and hissed and foamed, racing round in an ever-increasing circle.
Then, “Great Heaven!” burst from the lips of the engineer. “Ichthyosaurus!”
Up in the midst of the eddy, with a rush and a swirl, appeared a monstrous reptile. Never before had the engineer seen aught to equal the thing; yet instinctively he knew what the creature was, recognised it in an instant as the great fish-lizard, that old inhabitant of the prehistoric seas.
Full two hundred feet the reptile was in length, and its body was covered with great, overlapping, scaly plates. The gaping jaws revealed a double row of yellow fangs, and its monstrous eyes glowed like moons, as the brute fixed them curiously upon the motionless vessel.
So for a few minutes it remained.
Then, in a flash, its curiosity turned to furious rage as it noted an unfortunate movement of Wilson’s. But for that the creature might have departed as it had come, silently and peaceably.
Its four mighty paddles churned the already racing water into a mass of froth as, snorting furiously, it swept down upon the Seal.
Just for a moment the lad stood petrified. The suddenness of the thing, and, above all, the fearful size of the attacker held him spellbound.
He realised only too well the need for instant action if the Seal were to be saved, yet his trembling limbs refused to obey the prompting of his brain.
But to him came the recollection of his friends’ dependence upon the vessel; if she were destroyed his absent comrades were lost!
The thought gave him strength.
With a bound he leapt to the stairhead, and darted down to the engine-room. Thrusting over the lever to the last notch, he dashed back again into the wheelhouse, just as the Seal, straining under the full power of her engines, snapped her mooring cable like a cotton thread and sped seaward.
Past the raging reptile she flashed like a meteor, and for a few moments the engineer’s heart bounded with hope that the giant brute would not give chase.
But not so easily was the ichthyosaurus shaken off. With a sweep of his tail he turned and swung after the flying vessel.
Fast as the submarine was travelling, it soon became evident that the reptile could travel faster. With a few powerful strokes he drew alongside, and his mighty teeth snapped within an inch of the vessel’s rail, Wilson turning the Seal only just in time to avert disaster.
This temporary failure appeared to increase the reptile’s rage, and he swept forward again like a flash of light.
Four walls of green, foam-capped water poured from his thrashing paddles, and washed clear over the submarine’s deck.
The monster’s tail, swinging, rising, and falling, lashed the water with strokes that rang like the reports of guns.
Something must be done, and that quickly, Wilson thought. But what? That was the question.
If that swinging tail once smote the Seal, her course would be ended on the instant. Stout as were her plates, they could not stand a blow of that sort. Glancing desperately about him, the engineer’s eye fell upon Seymour’s elephant gun.
It was a forlorn hope, yet, in his desperate plight, he determined to try a shot with the great weapon.
Giving a turn to the wheel, to alter the course of the vessel, he locked it, then took down the gun.
It was loaded, for, since the octopus’s attack, Seymour had insisted on its being kept ready for action; so, opening the door cautiously, Wilson stepped out. The rush of water, knee-deep, almost swept him off his feet, but, bracing himself against the wheelhouse, he raised his weapon and aimed carefully at one of the moonlike eyes of his pursuer.
Bang! The kick of the great gun almost dislocated the lad’s shoulder, but the pain of this was as nothing compared to his chagrin when he found that he had missed.
The terrific speed of the vessel and of her mighty enemy made aiming exceedingly difficult, and, added to this, the elephant gun was a weapon to which Wilson was entirely unaccustomed.
Once more he raised it to his shoulder, and fired the second barrel.
This time the shell struck the reptile’s head, but glanced off the gleaming scales without exploding.
“The brute must be made of steel,” the engineer muttered savagely as he retired, disheartened by his failure. As the net result of his effort he had succeeded in still further enraging his huge opponent, and had badly bruised his own shoulder.
The floor of the turret was awash when he entered, but he cared little for a discomfort of so trivial a character.
The peril of the moment completely dispelled all other thoughts from his mind. As he once more grasped the wheel-spokes, a half-formed resolution came over him—that, if he and the Seal were to be destroyed, the great reptile should perish with them.
He had partly turned the submarine for the purpose of ramming his terrible enemy, when a filmy wisp of vapour drifted across the deck.
He looked up quickly.
A moment later a vast cloud of blinding mist rolled down upon the vessel, blotting out the surface of the water and enveloping pursued and pursuer in a thick white veil.
“Thank God!” the engineer cried fervently, as the Seal raced on into the friendly shelter of the mist.
Gradually the sound of the reptile’s paddles grew fainter. Like a hunted hare the submarine twisted and doubled, ever drawing away from her monstrous foe; yet, even when all sound of the brute had ceased, Wilson still held on, determined not to fall foul again of the peril he had so narrowly escaped.
But now danger arose from another source.
The Seal’s excessive speed made travelling within the enveloping mist highly dangerous. Each moment the engineer expected some obstruction to loom before him—a rocky island, perhaps, upon which the submarine would dash blindly and shiver herself to fragments.
Dared he leave the Seal to her own devices for a few seconds, and slip below to slow the engines? He asked himself the question over and over again, ere he summed up courage to loose the wheel-spokes and make a quick dash for the engine-room.
Quick as thought he pulled back the lever, almost to its resting-place, then raced to the stairs.
As he reached them there came a grating jar which shook the vessel, and, with a crash that jerked him off his feet, the Seal came to a standstill.
Somewhat bruised by his fall, the engineer rose, and, retracing his steps, entirely stopped the engines, after which he betook himself once more to the turret, anxious to know the full extent of the accident.
It was as he thought. He had slowed the engines a few moments too late, and the vessel, racing madly forward by her own momentum, had piled herself high and dry upon a shingly beach.
This much Wilson could discover by leaning over the rail, but the mist was still too dense to allow him to make out the character of his surroundings.
Whether he was anywhere near the spot from which he had started he could not tell; but, realising that he could do nothing until the mist lifted, he prepared himself some food and made a hearty meal.
As the hours went by, and there came no sign of the thinning of the cloudy veil around, the engineer grew anxious.
What if his friends returned while he was still absent? Naturally, after his promise they would instantly believe that the vessel had been destroyed in some manner, and perhaps would leave the beach, never to return.
The thought maddened him, and he had just determined to make an effort to get the Seal afloat again without waiting for the lifting of the mist when, as suddenly as it had come, the cloud rolled upward and vanished.
Then the full extent of his misfortune became apparent to the engineer. The submarine had grounded for almost her entire length, and it needed but a glance to tell him that her re-floating would be a matter of great difficulty, if, indeed, it could be managed at all.
By the character of the ground around Wilson surmised that he must be far from his starting-place, and this afterwards proved to be the case.
Before him lay a stretch of stony beach, perhaps one hundred yards in width, and beyond that rose a towering wall of cliffs, looming grim and gaunt through the twilight.
The engineer’s first movement was to start the engines at full speed astern; but, though the propellers whirled madly, the vessel remained motionless, and it became apparent that, despite his wish to be moving, Wilson would have to wait for the turn of the tide ere making any effort to once more float the Seal.
Part of the time Wilson passed in making an examination of his craft, both inside and out, and glad indeed was he to find that she had sustained but little damage, and that only of a minor character.
All too slowly the water rose, the incoming waves lapping the submarine’s hull playfully as they danced and shivered in the rays of the searchlight.
At intervals the engineer tried the engines, and at last, after a long wait, the water rose high enough to answer his purpose.
A tremor passed through the vessel; her propellers churned and thrashed; she bumped, rolled, then slid gently off the beach.
“Hurrah!” shouted Wilson, and flung up his cap. The Seal was afloat once more. Over the rolling waves she flew at full speed, the engineer’s one thought being to regain the beach from which the attack of the great ichthyosaurus had driven him.
Two hours later, after a long search, Wilson found himself back at the old mooring-place. Securely fastening the vessel, he stepped ashore to stretch his limbs.
As he paced backward and forward across the beach, he wondered whether his friends had returned from their expedition during his absence.
Suddenly, as he turned to go on board again, he noticed something gleaming in the sand, almost at his feet.
Stooping, he picked the shining object up. It was the baronet’s revolver! The truth burst upon him in a flash.
“So they came back,” he muttered, “while I was away, for I know Seymour took this with him when he went off the second time.”
Gloomy and depressed beyond measure by the discovery, he stepped across the gangway. Then an idea struck him. Perhaps his friends were still within hearing!
On the impulse of the moment he snatched down a rifle from the rack and fired it into the air.
But no answering report came back to him. Again and again he fired, but with no better result, and at length he gave up in despair.
Then suddenly the silence was broken by a hideous clamour of wolfish howls. Distant though they were, the cries almost froze the blood in Wilson’s veins, so full were they of deadly menace.
Louder they grew, and it soon became evident to the engineer that the creatures who uttered them were advancing towards the Seal.
He was hesitating whether to cast off the mooring-rope or not when, out of the jungle, some three hundred yards from the vessel, burst a number of figures.
Straight for the vessel they made, one in advance seeming to be pursued by the others.
In a flash comprehension came to Wilson. Snatching up the magazine rifle he had but just laid down, he bounded through the doorway, crossed the deck at a leap, and sprang ashore.
As he did so the runner in advance raised his head, and a cry trembled from his lips.
“For God’s sake, fire, Wilson!”
“Garth!” the engineer cried, then raised his weapon.