BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



the eleven which had first made our keel their 

 happy hunting ground. Three times they re- 

 passed, and circled once before vanishing. 



On and on I went, with only the slowly ascending 

 hemp spiral to make real the passage of space. 

 I felt I was taking an unconscionable amount of 

 time, and had descended only a few yards beneath 

 the schooner, when my feet struck the three-link 

 weight which hung at the end of the rope. The 

 thrill which marks the unexpected arrival at a 

 goal was mine, and did something to my ears, so, 

 like a monkey on a stick, I shot up again. In a 

 few seconds I was hanging from the last link, my 

 feet sinking in soft, age-old ooze. Even through 

 my rubber sneakers I could feel the silky, almost 

 oily smoothness. The light was surprisingly good, 

 my ears were quite normal, and I sensed my posi- 

 tion vividly. I kneeled down and found I was 

 in a chamber of visibility about ten feet square. 

 In the surface of the slime were many small craters 

 sheltering unknown occupants. At my feet and 

 scattered here and there, appeared great maggots 

 of holothurians, worthy tenants of this world of 

 ooze. Each had a pattern and to prove my goal, 

 I selected the most colorful and squeezing it into 

 dumb-bell shape I caught it netsuke-fashion in 

 my belt. Climbing slowly, and swallowing as I 

 went, I made good time and at last lifted my sea- 

 cucumber prize aloft above the water — an echino- 

 dermic Excaliber. My next goal will be one 

 hundred feet. 



136 



