Stevens turned toward the door, but as he did so he stopped suddenly short. The door had swung open, and in its opening stood a man, a dark, slender figure. The red glow of light from the window fell full upon his face, and as Stevens saw it he cried out. "Clinton!" he cried. "Good God!--Clinton!" The other came swiftly toward him, and grasped his arm. "I thought I might find you here, Stevens," he said, quietly. "It was a thousand-to-one chance, but I came." Stevens stumbled with him to the red-lit window, like a man in a dream. "Clinton!" he exclaimed again. "Where in God's name have you been, while this horror has been rising on the world? When did you come back?" Clinton pushed him back into the chair by the window, and silenced his questions with an upraised hand. "I came back but a few hours ago, Stevens," he said, "and I came here for you because I sail again in an hour, and want you with me." "Sail?" repeated Stevens, stupefied. "To where?" "To the bottom of the Atlantic," said Clinton, calmly. As the younger man stared at him he dropped into a chair beside him. "To the bottom of the Atlantic," he repeated, his voice suddenly pregnant with dread knowledge, "where I have been for weeks, where there is a secret which I first of all men discovered, where the work of untold ages is whirling now to its climax and sending this mighty flood rolling out to drown our world!" He was silent a moment, gazing out over the red-lit city while Stevens stared at him in stunned amazement, and then went on. "You were to have been of our expedition, Stevens, and you know what my plans were. You know how we sailed in our submarine to penetrate the deeps that had never yet been penetrated by man. Out of the English Channel, out into the open Atlantic we sailed, west and northwest, until we had reached at last the northern boundary of the Nelsen Deeps. And there our work began.