96 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



hesitated, felt about in different directions, and 

 then descended the steps, flowing along the angles 

 like some horrid viscid fluid in animal form. The 

 most active imagination could not have set the 

 scene better, or found a more appropriate actor. 



But like the double miracle of the stars falling 

 into the volcano the end was not yet. A mist of 

 yellow-tailed surgeons drifted across the stairs and 

 the dread boulder, and for a moment their calm 

 matter-of-factness lessened the sinister feeling of 

 the whole thing. A strong desire arose to look 

 around the corner of the stair for myself. I was 

 submerged so deeply that as I stood, I could barely 

 reach the lowest rung of the ladder, indeed I was 

 occasionally lifted a few inches from the ground 

 as the boat rose to a greater swell. But I knew 

 the hose was new and stout and even if I began to 

 fall with that terrible slowness, as seemed easily 

 possible to my imagination, I could surely climb 

 back up my own string. One finger relaxed and 

 I was about to take the chance when a mote, very 

 faint and pale, stirred the blueness as if some 

 wondrous tapestry curtain were troubled by a 

 breath of air. 



The thing grew denser, took form and became 

 concrete, and a flat, round-fronted head, lazily 

 midulating, wound through the water over the 

 steps, a nine-foot shark weaving along where I 

 would have been a minute later. My common- 

 sense theory of the harmlessness of these beings 

 still held good ; in the last few days dozens of them 

 had approached within a few yards of me, but the 



