But our light had betrayed us. I was first aware that though, with the Parodyne cut off, we had been poised motionless, we were _not_ motionless! The gully had passed behind us! Slowly, silently, as though drifting, we were moving out over the caldron! The declivity with its sudden drop was now behind us; we were in open water, five hundred feet above the caldron floor. * * * * * I clutched at the Parodyne control, to start it. I think I must have stammered some startled, horrified words. There was no time to say or do anything. A light--it may have been a form of light, or something more tangible perhaps--shot suddenly upward at us. A narrow green beam with red fire woven through it, a darting thing like a dim narrow beam of light. It caught us. More tangible than light, for I could feel it strike us, grip us! As though caught in the magnetic grapples of a crane, I could feel the solid grip of it; holding the Dolphin, partly turning us over. And drawing us, sucking us--there are no words to describe it--pulling us downward! There was an instant of horrified confusion. The shock had thrown all of us against the instrument room wall. I heard Dr. Plantet shout something. I must have been able to start the Parodyne; it was burring; the pressure pumps fortunately continued to work; I could hear their whine. The Dolphin was shuddering; shaken; stricken. And being pulled down--a great fish held struggling but helpless in the luminous tentacle of a monster. Polly was clutching me. I caught a vision of Arturo, holding Nereid, his encircling arms trying to protect her. I did not see Dr. Plantet. I flung the Parodyne to all its power. I could feel it futilely surge against this thing holding us. I was thrown again. Through the bull’s-eye a slanted scene of movement was coming up at us as we went down. And then there was a flash down there--a flash of blinding white, brief and silent. I know now that Dr. Plantet had been able to get to the torpedo tube--had taken swiftly what came to hand and launched it. A mere light-bomb, of the sort recently developed for sub-sea photography. It may have been harmless or not, to this strange enemy. Perhaps it blinded whatever eyes were guiding this grappling thing. And for an instant, the clutching hold upon us loosened. The Dolphin righted, and as I turned on the ejecting pumps, we started upward, gathering speed. The Parodyne took hold and added its power. I turned our bow straight up. The grappling light sprang upward, past us. It missed us, came back and missed again. Its source was very mobile--it seemed rising after us; it swept off to one side and the beam leaped again, and again did not strike.