"Sat down and thought. Carefully. Hit on a plan. Took one of our two torpoons. Lashed on it steel plates, ground to sharp cutting edges. Spent days at it. Thought torpoon could go out and cut the ropes. Haines volunteered and we shot him and torpoon out." "They got the torpoon?" Ken asked. Sallorsen's arm raised in a pointing gesture. "Look." * * * * * Some fifty feet away from the _Peary_, on the side opposite to the one Ken Torrance had approached, a dimly discernible object lay in the mud. In miniature, it resembled the submarine: a cigar-shaped steel shell, held down to the sea-bottom by ropes bound over it. Cutting edges of steel had been fastened along its length. "I see," said Ken slowly. "And its pilot?" "Stayed in the torpoon thirty-six hours. Then went crazy. Put on sea-suit and tried to get back here. Whisk--they got him. Killed and mangled while we watched!" "But didn't his torpoon have a nitro-shell gun? Couldn't he have fought them off for a time?" "Exploring submarine, this! No guns in torpoons like whalers. Gun wouldn't help, anyway. These devils too fast. No use. No hope anywhere...." Sallorsen sank back against the bulkhead, his lips moving but no sound coming forth. Dully he stared ahead, through the submarine, for a moment before uttering a cackling mockery of a laugh and going on. "Even after that, still hoped! Blew every tank on ship; blew out most of her oil. Threw out everything not vital. Lightened her as much as could. Machinery--detachable metal--fixtures--baggage--instruments--knives, plates, cups--everything! She rose a couple of feet--no more! Put motors at full speed--back and forth--again, again, again. Buoyancy--power--no good. No damn good! "And then we tried the last chance. Explosives. Had quite a store, Nitromite, packed in cases; time-fuses to set it off. Had it for blasting ice. I sent up a charge and blew hole in the ice overhead, for our other torpoon. "Nothing else left. Knew planes must be nearby, searching. Last torpoon was to shoot up to the hole--pilot to climb on ice and stay there to signal a plane." "Did he get there?" "Hell no!" Sallorsen cackled again. "It was roped like the other. Pilot tried to get back, but they got him like first. There's the torpoon--out ahead." Ken could just make it out. It lay ahead, slightly to port, lashed down like its fellow by seaweed-ropes. His eyes were held by it, even when Sallorsen continued, in an almost hysterical voice: "Since then--since then--you know. Week after week. Air getting worse. Rectifiers running down. No night, no day. Just the lights, and those damned devils outside. Wore sea-suits for a while; used twenty-nine of their thirty hours air-units. Old Professor Halloway died, and another man. Couldn't do anything for 'em. Just sit and watch. Head aching, throat choking--God!...