"This city is built upon great subterranean passages that lead to many hidden exits. If we show the least sign of hostility the work will be resumed on the canal, and, before we can locate the spot, and stop the work, the damage will be done. "This is our only chance, sir, to make this expedition a complete success. Permit me to judge this fact from the evidence I have before me. Whatever sacrifice there is to make, I make gladly. Wieschien asks that you depart at once, and in peace, and I know this is the only course. Good-by, sir; convey my salutations to my other friends upon the old _Ertak_, and elsewhere. And now, lest my last act as an officer of the Special Patrol Service be to refuse to obey the commands of my superior officer, I am removing the menore. Good-by!" I tried to reach him again, but there was no response. Gone! He was gone! Swallowed up in darkness and in silence! * * * * * Dazed, shaken to the very foundation of my being, I stood there between the shadowy bulk of the _Ertak_ and the towering mass of the great silent pile that was the seat of government in this strange land of darkness, and gazed up at the dark sky above me. I am not ashamed, now, to say that hot tears trickled down my cheeks, nor that as I turned back to the _Ertak_, my throat was so gripped by emotion that I could not speak. I ordered the exit closed with a wave of my hand; in the navigating room I said but four words: "We depart at once." At the third meal of the day I gathered my officers about me and told them, as quickly and as gently as I could, of the sacrifice one of their number had made. It was Kincaide who, when I had finished, rose slowly and made reply. "Sir," he said quietly, "We had a friend. Some day, he might have died. Now he will live forever in the records of the Service, in the memory of a world, and in the hearts of those who had the honor to serve with him. Could he--or we--wish more?" Amid a strange silence he sat down again, and there was not an eye among us that was dry. * * * * * I hope that the snappy young officer who visited me the other day reads this little account of bygone times. Perhaps it will make clear to him how we worked, in those nearly forgotten days, with the tools we had at hand. They were not the perfect tools of to-day, but what they lacked, we somehow made up. That fine old motto of the Service, "Nothing Less Than Complete Success," we passed on unsullied to those who came after us. I hope these youngsters of to-day may do as well. _IN THE NEXT ISSUE_ THE TENTACLES FROM BELOW _A Complete Novelette of An American Submarine's Dramatic Raid on Marauding "Machine-Fish" of the Ocean Floor_ By Anthony Gilmore PHALANXES OF ATLANS