"Neither would I have myself look different," her father admitted cheerfully. "I've gotten used to myself this way. I like to look at myself this way. It's an acquired taste like olives, but once you learn to like me this way--why, there you are." Nita laughed and was silent. Suddenly she began to look a little bit puzzled. "Do you notice anything funny?" she asked in a moment or so. "Somehow, the boat doesn't seem to be traveling just right." Her father listened. Only the usual sounds came to his ears. The washing of the waves along the sides, however, had a peculiar timbre. Then he noticed that the boat seemed to be checking a little in its speed. There was an odd, velvety quality in the checking, very much like the soft breaking effect felt when a motor boat runs into a patch of weed. "Queer," said Morrison. "We'll ask the captain." The two of them walked down the deck arm in arm until they came to the stair ladder leading up to the bridge. The gentle checking continued. The boat seemed to be gradually slowing up, though the engines throbbed on as before. "What's the matter, captain?" asked Morrison. His first mate answered: "I've sent for the captain, sir. Our speed has fallen off three knots in the past five minutes." The captain came hastily up on the bridge, buttoning up his coat as he came. "What's the matter, Mr. Harrison?" The first mate turned a worried face to him. "Our speed has dropped off three knots in five minutes, sir, and seems to be still slackening. I thought it best to send for you." The captain called up the engine room. "All right down there?" "Per-rhaps," came the answer in a thick Scotch burr. "Ah was aboot to ask ye the same mysel'. We're usin' twenty perr cent more steam for the same number of rrevolutions." "We might have run into a big patch of seaweed," suggested the first mate. "Unship the searchlight," said the captain crisply. A seaman came up to the bridge. He had been sent back to look at the patent log. "We're logging eight knots now, sir." The first mate uttered an exclamation. "That's six knots off what we were making ten minutes ago!" No one spoke for a moment or so, while one or two seamen worked at the lashing of the cover on the searchlight. "Do any of you smell anything?" asked Nita suddenly. A faint but distinct odor came to their nostrils. It was the odor of slime and mud, with a tinge of musk. It was the scent of foul things from the water. It was a damp and humid smell, indistinctly musklike and disgusting. "Like deep-sea mud," said one of the seamen to the other. "Like somethin' come up from Gawd knows what soundin'." Nita gasped a little. The searchlight sputtered and then a long, white pencil of light shot out over the water. It wavered, and sank to a point just beside the bow of the boat. It showed--nothing. The bow wave rose reluctantly and traveled but a little distance before it subsided into level sea. There were no waves. The water was calm as an inland lake.