Hours of steady swimming southward. Then the familiar beach, and above it a lighted house which Dean recognized--his own house on the cliff. There were figures descending the slope now; two men with torches were coming down to the beach. He must not let them see him--why, he did not know, but they must not. He crawled along the beach, keeping close to the water's edge. Even so, he seemed to move very swiftly. The men with the torches were some distance behind him now. Ahead loomed another familiar outline--a cave. He had clambered over these rocks before, it seemed. He knew the pits of shadow that speckled the cliff rock, and knew the narrow passage of stone through which he now squeezed his prostrate body. Was that someone shouting, far away?... Darkness, and a lapping pool. He crawled forward, felt chill waters creep over his body. Muffled by distance came an insistent shouting from outside the cave. "Graham! Graham Dean!" Then the smell of dank sea-foulness was in his nostrils--a familiar, pleasant smell. He knew where he was, now. It was the cave where in his dream he had kissed the sea-thing. It was the cave in which---- He remembered now. The black blur lifted from his brain, and he remembered all. His mind bridged the gap, and he once again recalled coming here earlier this very evening, before he had found himself in the water. Morella Godolfo had called him here; here her dark whispers had guided him at twilight, when he had come from the bed at Doctor Yamada's house. It was the siren song of the sea-creature that had lured him in dreams. He remembered how she had coiled about his feet when he entered, flung her sea-bleached body up until its inhuman head had loomed close to his own. And then the hot pulpy lips had pressed against his--the loathsome, slimy lips had kissed him again. Wet, dank, horribly avid kiss! His senses had drowned in its evil, for he knew that this second kiss meant doom. "The sea-dweller will take your body," Doctor Yamada had said.... And the second kiss meant doom. _All this had happened hours ago!_ Dean shifted around in the rocky chamber to avoid wetting himself in the pool. As he did so, he glanced down at his body for the first time that night--glanced down with an undulating neck at the shape he had worn for three hours in the sea. He saw the fish-like scales, the scabrous whiteness of the slimy skin; saw the veined gills. He stared into the waters of the pool then, so that the reflection of his face was visible in the dim moonlight that filtered through fissures in the rocks. He saw all....