The ominous crash and ringing echoes regularly repeated, seemed to disorganise Ken's mind as he looked vainly for something with which to brace the door. Nothing unattached was left--nothing! He ran and examined the quarsteel pane again, and this time his brain heated in alarm. A thin line had shot through the quarsteel--the beginning of a crack. "Back!" Ken shouted to the still staring Sallorsen. "Back to the third compartment. This door's going!" "Yes," Sallorsen mumbled. "It'll go. So will the others. They'll smash them all. And when this is flooded--no hope of running the submarine again. Controls in here." "That's too damned bad!" Ken said roughly. "Are there any sea-suits, food, supplies in here?" "Only food. In those lockers." "I'll take it. Get into that third compartment--hear me?" ordered Kenneth Torrance. "And have its door ready to close!" He shoved Sallorsen away, opened the indicated lockers and piled his arms with the tins revealed. He had time for no more than one load. He jumped back into the third compartment of the _Peary_ just as a splintering crash sounded from behind. The door between was swung closed and locked just as the one being battered crashed inward. Turning, Ken saw that the torpoon had cracked through the weakened quarsteel and tumbled in a mad cascade of water to the deck of the abandoned second compartment. In dread silence, he, with Sallorsen and those of the men who had strength and curiosity enough to come forward, watched the compartment rapidly fill--watched until they saw the water pressed high against the door. And then horror swept over Ken Torrance. * * * * * Water! There was a trickle of water down the quarsteel he was leaning against! A fault along the hinge of the door--either its construction, or because it had not been closed properly. Ken pointed it out to the captain. "Look!" he said. "A leak already--just from the pressure! This door won't last more than a couple of minutes when they start on it--" Sallorsen stared stupidly. As for the rest; Ken might not have spoken. They were as if in a trance, watching dumbly, with lungs automatically gasping for air. One of the seal-creatures eeled through the shattered quarsteel of the first door and swam slowly around the newly flooded compartment. At once it was joined by five other lithe, sleek shapes which, with placid, liquid eyes, inspected the compartment minutely. They came in a group right up to the next door that barred their way and, with no visible emotion, stared through the quarsteel pane at the humans who stared at them. And then they gracefully turned and slid to the battered torpoon. "Back!" Ken shouted, "You men!" He shook them, shoved them roughly back toward the fourth, and last, compartment. Weakly, like automatons they shuffled into it. The torpooner said bruskly to Sallorsen: