The public so quickly forgets! No one seemed greatly worried now over the mysterious things that had occurred in 1990. No one ever seemed to think that they might occur again. Yet to me, the menace always hung over us. Arturo had said, “This may only be an experimental attack--the main warfare may be fought on land.” Those wild desert lands which now we were calling the sea. They were so soon to be added to our habitable world, with our enemy infernal lurking in them! * * * * * My ship was put back on its regular run in January, 1991. It was, to me, an eerie thing to be traversing again these waters of the Pacific, flowing through them on our prosaic commercial rounds as if nothing strange had ever happened down here. For the first few voyages my nerves were taut; I found myself with sharpened fancy and straining vision watching the passing green depths, as though every moment I might see a globe with Nereid’s face. Or Arturo, in some strange guise, waiting somewhere down here to meet our passing. I sometimes feared that a beam of light which was not light, but something else might leap up from beneath and seize us, as the Dolphin that time had been seized. The feeling after a few voyages wore off. Nothing happened; I began to tell myself that nothing ever would happen. I was doing well financially. Our line was prospering. In March, 1991, the directors voluntarily raised my pay. I began to think then of Polly as my wife. I had never spoke definitely of love to her, yet there was between us an understanding--unvoiced, but I am sure that she felt as I did. Much of my shore leave was spent with Polly and her father. He was planning a long voyage of the Dolphin, to chart the ocean deeps in the interest of science. I wondered if it could be that there was still in his mind some thought of finding a trace of Arturo. I think so; but he disguised it. He planned to have me navigate the Dolphin. It necessitated my giving up my post; and I hesitated. I wanted to marry Polly; and to be working for her father, dependent upon him for my income, was not wholly to my liking. The dreams and nightmares which were to have so strange an influence upon my future, began about this time and for five months they troubled me. I had always been, or at least I thought so, a person above the influence of idle dreams. There was nothing morbid about me. Dreams might sway a fanciful lad like Arturo, but not me. But I was mistaken. These dreams--I had them, fragments of them nearly every time I slept--gradually laid their mark upon me. I did not speak of love to Polly; I avoided decision with Dr. Plantet over the voyage of the Dolphin. I was scarcely aware of it at first, but I became moody, silent, almost morose. Polly noticed it. Once, with a very gentle tenderness which I was in no mood to appreciate, she tried to question me. I recall that I checked her sharply.