The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1902-05-09

rays, You don't get it at all.
when | stepped out of the shaft o.
hatchway twilight into the twcel
decks shadow it was like passing
through a curtain; and as | felt my
way toward where the COOKS galley
olght to be, it was like tlrusting my
arms and legs into L new element
one thicker than water and not ever
liquid; it was kind of furry and seemed
to slide and creep.
at had its effect on me, and the
gloom and Lonesome horrors that nc
diver working in darkness is ever with
out, were beginning to crawl over me
when suddenly something whipped and
closed about my wrist. 1t was like
big roll of cold, slippery elastic.
1T held me only moment, but ii
left me water kneed, goose fleshed and
swallowing. don't know where my
blood went to, but l know it dropped
out of my heart as if an exhaust had
been opened in the bottom of il; and
on my feet were the pigs of lead that
hold you down in nightmares.
81 stayed right there, listening to
my pulse beating in my cars and feel
ing myself grow sick; and when | did
pull myself together enough to reach
for the signal line, my arm was clutched
like fash. The next moment my
other was prisoner, too. Then the
tentacles began to nose about all over
me like cells.
II did not need my eyes to know
what it was. Id heard of the giant
rock sQuid, and Id often watched the
little ones in the Palermo aquarium.
They'll lay hold of something new to
them, and paw it over deliberately by
the hour, sque. zing and pulling it, and
never letting go for Il minute.
"All this came back to me. and l
could Judge the 81 Of the >quid that
, had got hold of me hy the length of its
: arms Its eyes told its bulk, too; for
, when IL got my strength again, and
my struggling began to turn its curl
osity into anger, they came out phos-
! phorescent i'm the darkness They
were hideous enough danger signals,
and as | wrenched and heaved they
lighted up uglicr and ugler. For all
| could do the grip Oh me only tight
| cned
But it wasn't the tightncss Of the
grip that was sending the crawling
shud,lers through me; it was the kind
Of grip it was. For the suckers-and
there were two rows OF them on every
arm-beyan TO set and draw They
| glued themselves to me all over, but
felt their mouth worst on my bare
Lands and wrists.
"Sometimcs | would get hold of the
end of an arm. and twisted it off me-;
but it only gave and stretched like the
elastic it was. knew that as soon as
l had to relax the tension it would
spring back again. And every minute
or two the brute spat its sepia; | could
smell it even through my rubber suit.
fought and yelled like crazy man,
for my nerves had gone; but the thick
'hough! hougL!' the beast makes when
its blood is up was all the answer and
heed it gave me.
Yet in that first terror it hadn't
| rightly come over me what my real
danger was. 1t was only when | had
struggled and screamed myself tired
and had gasping leisure for clear think
ing that | realized what the end of it
was likely to be. My first thought
was, that, after all, | couldn't be
choked TO death, nor my air supply
shut off, and it would only be a matter
of time till | and the brute would be
hauled up together.
Then OF sudden my mind went
back to the Aquarium again, and | re-
member that whenever the little squids
in it caught a fish, or anything else
soft enough, they never failed to finish
handling it by pushing out that cLisel-
edged, parrot beak Of theirs, and rip
ping it up just as a child might an Old
rag doll. Its head had only to let 60
whatever it was holding to in the gal
ley, the beak had only to reach the
breast of my suit or even to slit up
one Of my sleeves to drown me as sure
as if there weren't a diving pump
within thousand miles of Palermo.
Il think | went into kind of delir-
ium then, filling my helmet full Of
senseless screenings till it rang like a
| Chinese gong, jerking and writhing in
the hrute's arms, and fling my head
back and forward in the crazy hope of
sending up Il signal that way; but l
had too much slack, and knew they'd
/ probably not heed it, anyway.
"All the time the suckers were draw
ing steadily stronger; from the first
nip and sting, felt now a long burn
ing ache. One arm was coilng itself
more and more around my neck. |
could hear it rub squeaking about my
! copper collar, and as it frightened |
knew it was bringing the head gradu-
ally closer.
The scpia was now as vile as two
year-old blge. AS | foamed and
! fought, the eyes stood out like great
apols with candles behind them, and