Nereid opened a table and set food before us. They all ate save myself; I could no more than taste it--queer looking food which all of them appeared to relish. We passed down into the third lock; and the fourth and fifth. In each, Entt slowed our rotation. The slot separated into the spinning windows; in the fifth lock they halted. Our globe lay inert, vibrationless at least, I felt immediately less oppressed, but it was largely psychological, for the air we were breathing was unchanged. “Is this the normal air where we are going?” I demanded. “Yes,” said Arturo, “it will be always like that. But you’ll get used to it. They’re thinning the water outside--presently we’ll be out into air just like this.” He added, abruptly: “Jeff, it’s a relief to have you here. We are engaged in a desperate thing, Jeff. The welfare of our world up there depends on it--and more than that, Nereid’s people--” * * * * * I interrupted: “Day before yesterday, when the public was given the news--” I said it casually, then stopped. Day before yesterday! Was it only that? It seemed so long ago--so far away, so like a vague dream, that bright other world up there which was mine. “When the public was given the news, there was almost a panic--” “News? What news?” They stared at me. “Why,” I said, “the news that the oceans are receding again. A real drop this time. We couldn’t mistake it, because--” My voice trailed away. I gazed in surprise. My words seemed a bombshell. Arturo went visibly whiter; Tad’s jaw dropped. Nereid exchanged a glance of sudden fear with Entt. They all sat confounded. “Oceans--dropping?” “Why yes. Off nearly three fathoms. We realized then--” They sat confounded. They did not know that the menace had come to our world! I had assumed, of course, that they did, that they had sent for me, in some crisis now that the danger had come again. Arturo gasped. “It has come! Tad, my God, after all we’ve planned! Done it now--why, what she has dared to do--why, it’s irrevocable! We can’t stop it now, Tad!” A fear, a horror lay upon them all, and I saw that this was something more than the menace of the draining of our oceans, and a war with these people of the abyss. Something, to Nereid and Entt, more personal--more horrifying. And to Tad and Arturo, the defeat of all their plans. Arturo leaped to his feet. “We’ve got to hasten--where are we?” “Seventh lock,” said Tad. He had recovered his poise; he gestured vehemently. “Sit down, Arturo--can’t do anything yet.” Arturo stood at a window. I joined him. “You didn’t know?” “No! Of course not! We’ve been fighting it! She dared--” “She?” I gripped him, “Who, Arturo?” He shook me off, turned on me sharply. “Let me alone! We’ve got to get down to the City of the Mound, I tell you! To Nereid’s father. He probably knows about it now.”