Chapter 10: The Return of the Wanderer

Wells watched the several helmet-lights shooting upwards and wondered if they represented all the men that had got safely through the net of tentacles. Remembering the rocky ceiling they were rapidly approaching, he ordered the others to reduce speed by discharging air from their sea-suits. He received no articulate answer.

Although he cut down the rush of his own progress, it was with a jar that he bounded into the top of the cavern. As he dangled there, he beheld four light beams hurtling upward; his earphones registered crash after crash: and then he saw the beams go spinning down into the gloom again, weaving and crossing fantastically, the shock having jerked them from their owner’s hands. Keith had lost his own helmet-light below, but peering around he could make out a few vague forms, bumping and twisting in the current.

“Graham!” the commander called. “Graham, you there?” After a moment his first officer’s voice came thickly back.

“Yes--here. A bit groggy. That crash...” Wells swam clumsily towards him.

“I guess only a few of us broke through,” the commander said slowly. As the two officers hung at the roof, swinging grotesquely, one by one the other men came to their senses and reported their presence in the radiophone. Keith ordered them to cluster around him, and soon eight weird figures had grouped nearby. After a while they located two others, which brought their total to ten men and two officers. They looked a long time, but could not find any more. Two were gone.

Deep silence fell over the tiny group. The dark mass of the rocky ceiling scraped their helmets; below, the bluish waters tapered into a thick gloom, hiding, miles beneath, the mound-buildings and swarming octopi.

One of the men spoke. His words were audible to everyone, and they voiced the thought in every brain:

“What’re we going to do now?”

Keith had no answer. They had escaped the immediate danger, but it was only a temporary respite. The commander knew it was hopeless to try and locate the tunnel leading to the outer sea, for they were very tired, and in their clumsy suits they would be able to swim only a few rods. Their helmet-lights were gone; they had played their last card.

“They’re goin’ to find us after a while,” the pessimistic voice continued. “They’ll send that submarine of theirs after us--or maybe they’ll come up in their metal suits...”

“Well,” Keith replied with forced cheerfulness, “then we’ll have to fight ‘em off.”

“Why not rip our suits an’ end it now--” began another, but Graham’s voice cut in sharply.

“Quiet!” he said. “I heard something!”

The men stilled abruptly. In tense silence their ears strained at the headphones. Wells asked: “What did you hear?”

“Wait!” Graham interrupted, listening intently. “There it is again! Listen! Can’t you hear it? Why, it sounded like--like--”

Keith concentrated his whole mind on listening, but could catch nothing at all. He was just about to give up when he caught a faint, jumbled murmur--the murmur of a human voice.

“My God!” he whispered. The voice, little by little, grew, and Wells could distinguish words. They formed into a complete sentence. Keith heard it plainly. It was:

“Now, what the hell’s this thing for?”

Unmistakably, it was the voice of Cook Angus McKegnie, whom they all had thought dead.

Amazed, the men of the crew started to jabber. “Quiet!” Wells ordered sharply. He listened again. McKegnie’s voice was growing quickly and steadily louder.

“McKegnie!” the commander cried excitedly. “McKegnie, can you hear me?” There was no answer. Patiently Wells waited a minute, every second of which increased the volume of his long-lost cook’s bewildered tones. Again he tried.