Williams news., 1918-03-21

\ between ms voyages.
 MacBeard came up to Donald witl
 smile of affected friendliness. T understand that there is no rec ord of our friends address," he saiC Poor Masterman was a very retirin. man. No doubt we shall learn iron his friends in a day or two. I vii have an announcement published, anC
 have arranged for the funeral to bt
 held from Byam's undertaking estab
 lishment the day after tomorrow al
 noon. Is there anything further tc
 be done?'
 "I hardly think so," answered Don
 aid.
 "Then if you can look in here to.
 morrow at eleven, we may talk mat.
 ters over. And now permit me to wish
 you good evening"" said the profes-
 sor cordially.
 Donald took the proffered hand and felt a sense of disgust at the touch of the limp fingers. He strode out of the club and took a taxicab to the station.
 The Baltimore train was just about to leave. Late that night Lieutenant Paget found the captains house. It proved to be in a little old-fashioned thoroughfare fanked by neat two- story houses. Each had a tiny back garden surrounded by a high wall. | There was about 1t an atmosphere, if not of mystery, at any rate of the re- tirement common to such backwaters | in the roaring streams of city life.
 The captains was the last house in the street. It stood a little farther back than the rest, and was turned slightly askew, facing them obliquely, as though it knew itself to be out of place and was watching it's neighbors apprehensively over it's shoulder.
 There was no light behind any of the drawn shades. A small dome on flat roof seemed to contain a tele- scope.
 Donald climbed a fence, walked round to the back, and went up the weed-grown path. The grass had not been moved since it sprouted in spring; the garden was unkempt and was nobody within.
 As he trod the flags of the garden walk, he fancied he heard the foot steps of a man in the street, following him. He stopped and listened, but now no sound was to be heard. He peered back into the darkness, but saw nobody. Doubtless it was a hal Inclination; it was a place of echoes and hauntings. And it seemed singu- larly appropriate for old Masterman to have had his lonely residence here, matching his lonely life.
 As Donald had anticipated. the front door was locked, and the window of the living room was apparently nailed up. He traversed the narrow path that led to the back of the house. To his surprise, the kitchen window was open.
 Then it occurred to him that Mas terman had, of course, gone directly home on his return from his last earthly voyage. He swung himself across the window sill and dropped to the kitchen floor. He lit a match and found the gas.
 The yellow flare disclosed a very ordinary kitchen. Masterman's coat hung on a nail beside the window, and he had been cooking porridge upon the range. Donald went through into a room at the back of the house, which had apparently been built out at date subsequent to the completion of the structure in its original form.
 He stopped short at the threshold, hearing the swish, swish" of water.
 It was not falling water, but a gentle and continuous rippling. It oc- cured to him that it was, on smaller scale, the sound that a seal makes in the course of it's ceaseless peregrina- tions around its tank.
 There was palm tree in a huge pot on either side of what looked like an enormous goldfish bowl. Behind this was a second bowl, even larger. In the middle of the room was a con- plicated apparatus resembling a re- tort. He saw a chandelier close to the wall.
 Donald lit three gas-jets.
 The light f1ickered and sputtered as the air rushed out. Then, when it had grown steady, Donald saw that sort of photographic lens was at- tached to a box in front of the appa- ratus, directed toward the great tank between the palms.
 Approaching, he perceived that the | top of the tank was covered with | glass. A slender tube of the same | material entered the water from above, where it was supported upon an arm extended from a wall. There was a connection between the tube and another which ran upward from the top of the retort.
 Presently Donald caught sight of a barometer attached to the front of the Now he began to under stand. The object in the tank, what ever it was, was under a sIre of a number of atmOSphereS.
 He approached the tank and walked round it, peering into it from every side. He saw the nipples on the wa