A half-mile. A quarter-mile. _La Rubia_ wallowed crazily, and more shrieks came from her deck. Then the fishing boat seemed to swing. Beyond her, a conical, glistening and utterly horrifying monster emerged, a mere few yards from her rail. Enormous eyes glittered in the searchlight rays. A monstrous tentacle with a row of innumerable sucker-disks reached over the stern of _La Rubia_. Another flare swept from the fishing boat's deck in the direction of the giant squid. It fell upon wetted, shining flesh. The monster jerked, and _La Rubia_ was shaken from stem to stern. Hurriedly, Terry pressed the power-feed button, and the sound projector was on. Its effect was instantaneous. The monster began to writhe convulsively. It was gigantic. It was twice, three times the size of the squid captured in the lagoon. Terry heard his own voice cry out, "Bazookas! Use 'em! Use 'em!" Flaring rocket missiles sped toward the giant. Davis flung one of the hand grenades he'd manufactured. The yacht plunged on toward the clutched, half-sunk fishing boat. The hand grenade exploded against the monster's flesh. Simultaneously, the bazooka-missiles hit their target and flung living, incandescent flame deep into the creature's body. Those flames would melt steel. They bored deeply into the squid, and they were infinitely more damaging than bullets. The creature leaped from the water, as chunks of its flesh exploded. It was a mountainous horror risen from the sea. As it leaped, it had squirted the inky substance which is the squid's ultimate weapon of defense. But, unlike small squid, this beast of the depths squirted phosphorescent ink. The beast splashed back into the sea, and the wave of its descent swept over the deck of _La Rubia_. The fishing boat nearly capsized. But the monster had not escaped the anguish of its wounds. It fought the injured spots as though an enemy still gnawed there. It was a struggling madness in the sea. The _Esperance_ swung to approach the half-sunken trawler, and Terry kept the searchlight on the turmoil. The beast knew panic. It was wounded, and the abyss is not a place where the weak or wounded can long survive. Its fellows would be coming.... They did. Something enormous moved swiftly under the sea toward the wounded monster. It could be seen by the phosphorescence its motion created, as it approached the surface. There was a jar, a jolt. Some part of it actually touched the _Esperance's_ keel. The huge monster moved ahead, but a trailing tentacle flicked up to what it had touched a moment before. The ugly tentacle trailed over the yacht's rail. The rail shattered. The forecastle hatch was wiped out. The bowsprit became mere debris which dangled foolishly from the standing rigging. The _Esperance_ bucked wildly at this fleeting contact. Nick fired a bazooka-shell, but it missed. Holding fast, Davis flung a grenade. It detonated uselessly. It was then that Deirdre screamed.