206 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



else. And yet unreasonably possessing an eye, 

 as well as or better developed than our own. When 

 to a low evolved mollusk thing, there has been 

 given a "window of the soul" such as this, one 

 wonders what secret, what thing of enormous 

 value must have been bartered for it, what sin- 

 ister transaction at some nefarious "Bureau 

 d'Echange de Maux." A hand even, would not 

 have been so unexpected, nor a foot patterned after 

 those of infinitely higher beings, but such an eye 

 should not be in such a body. 



Before we lose ourselves among the small folk 

 of mid-ocean let us strike a contrast. Day after 

 day, from the crow's nest or the bridge we caught 

 sight of the monsters of the ocean's surface, — 

 occasional sunfish so gigantic that, so long as they 

 remained out of reach of a yard-stick, it were better 

 for a scientist to call them merely exceedingly 

 large. A layman might use the simile of a vertical 

 barn-door and not exceed the truth. Indeed the 

 same time-worn phrase if considered horizontally 

 would be less than the actual fact if applied 

 to some of the devilfish or giant rays which we 

 saw. Now and then a playful one would leap 

 almost out of the water, or pass close to the bow 

 on its graceful, leisurely aquatic flight (Fig. 35). 



North of Narborough they were so numerous 

 that three of the staff, Dickerman, Franklin and 

 Cady, made up their minds to capture one. Assem- 

 bling every weapon, legitimate and otherwise, which 

 the Arcturus afforded, they set out in a tiny row- 

 boat and made good. When, later on, we ana- 



