Two lusty blows, with all the baronet’s giant strength behind them, and the great arm fell with a whack across the deck, wriggling still, although severed from the monstrous, pulpy body which gave it life. Springing forward, the baronet was about to lop in twain the tentacle which held his friend, when the _Seal_ heeled over, almost flinging him from the deck. With great difficulty he regained his balance; then a cry escaped him. Out of the water alongside came a huge, black body, armed with many more feelers. Slowly it dragged itself, clutching and clawing, over the rail, falling heavily inboard with a shock which threatened to capsize the _Seal._ The octopus had come aboard! There was something so weird, so uncanny in the appearance of the brute; something so diabolical about the writhing, twisting arms, as they groped and waved over the deck, that Seymour stood for an instant, half fascinated. The creature’s great eyes glared like green lamps, and its parrot-like beak snapped viciously, while from its pulpy body came an overpowering odour of musk. Suddenly a shrill cry of terror burst from Wilson. One of the great thrashing feelers had gripped him, and, dropping his axe in his deadly fear, the unfortunate engineer strove with all his strength to dislodge the suckers. As he was dragged slowly towards that terrible beak, an inspiration swept into his brain. “Quick, Seymour!” he gasped. “Your elephant gun!” Quick as thought the baronet leapt back into the turret, and took down the great gun from its rack. Slipping a couple of shells into the breech, he took a quick aim at the great, glaring orbs of the cephalopod, and fired both barrels. The recoil of the weapon sent him reeling backward against the wheelhouse wall, but he recovered himself in a moment, and sprang forward to note the result of his shot. The explosive cartridges had almost shattered the monstrous, pulpy body, and the mighty tentacles were feebly beating the deck. A few strokes with the hatchet quickly freed the two victims, both of whom were more dead than alive by this time. Carefully they bore them below to their cabins; then, leaving them in the care of the scientist, Garth and Seymour returned to the deck, to clear away the remains of their terrible visitor. “What a brute!” the inventor exclaimed with a shudder, as he plied his axe upon the ghastly, slippery mass; “if it hadn’t been for that gun of yours, Seymour, he’d have had the lot of us.” “True enough,” replied the baronet; “but who would have imagined the brute would board us?” Three hours it took to clear the deck of the mass of jelly-like pulp, Garth chopping it into fragments, which Seymour shovelled over the rail. And even then there was life in the creature, the severed feelers twitching feebly when they were touched. Two of the longest of these latter they measured, finding both to be over twenty feet long.