Chapter 4

For several days things went along in about the same course. I took our

position every morning with my crude sextant; but the results were always most

unsatisfactory. They always showed a considerable westing when I knew that we

had been sailing due north. I blamed my crude instrument, and kept on. Then one

afternoon the girl came to me.

“Pardon me,” she said, “but were I you, I should watch this man

Benson—especially when he is in charge.” I asked her what she meant, thinking I

could see the influence of von Schoenvorts raising a suspicion against one of

my most trusted men.

“If you will note the boat’s course a half-hour after Benson goes on duty,” she

said, “you will know what I mean, and you will understand why he prefers a

night watch. Possibly, too, you will understand some other things that have

taken place aboard.”

Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waited until

half an hour after Benson had gone on duty, and then I went on deck, passing

through the conning-tower where Benson sat, and looking at the compass. It

showed that our course was north by west—that is, one point west of north,

which was, for our assumed position, about right. I was greatly relieved to

find that nothing was wrong, for the girl’s words had caused me considerable

apprehension. I was about to return to my room when a thought occurred to me

that again caused me to change my mind—and, incidentally, came near proving my

death-warrant.

When I had left the conning-tower little more than a half-hour since, the sea

had been breaking over the port bow, and it seemed to me quite improbable that

in so short a time an equally heavy sea could be deluging us from the opposite

side of the ship—winds may change quickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There was

only one other solution—since I left the tower, our course had been altered

some eight points. Turning quickly, I climbed out upon the conning-tower. A

single glance at the heavens confirmed my suspicions; the constellations which

should have been dead ahead were directly starboard. We were sailing due west.

Just for an instant longer I stood there to check up my calculations—I wanted

to be quite sure before I accused Benson of perfidy, and about the only thing I

came near making quite sure of was death. I cannot see even now how I escaped

it. I was standing on the edge of the conning-tower, when a heavy palm suddenly

struck me between the shoulders and hurled me forward into space. The drop to

the triangular deck forward of the conning-tower might easily have broken a leg

for me, or I might have slipped off onto the deck and rolled overboard; but

fate was upon my side, as I was only slightly bruised. As I came to my feet, I

heard the conning-tower cover slam. There is a ladder which leads from the deck

to the top of the tower. Up this I scrambled, as fast as I could go; but Benson

had the cover tight before I reached it.

I stood there a moment in dumb consternation. What did the fellow intend? What

was going on below? If Benson was a traitor, how could I know that there were

not other traitors among us? I cursed myself for my folly in going out upon the

deck, and then this thought suggested another—a hideous one: who was it that

had really been responsible for my being here?

Thinking to attract attention from inside the craft, I again ran down the

ladder and onto the small deck only to find that the steel covers of the

conning-tower windows were shut, and then I leaned with my back against the

tower and cursed myself for a gullible idiot.

I glanced at the bow. The sea seemed to be getting heavier, for every wave now

washed completely over the lower deck. I watched them for a moment, and then a

sudden chill pervaded my entire being. It was not the chill of wet clothing, or

the dashing spray which drenched my face; no, it was the chill of the hand of

death upon my heart. In an instant I had turned the last corner of life’s

highway and was looking God Almighty in the face—the _U_-33 was being

slowly submerged!

It would be difficult, even impossible, to set down in writing my sensations at

that moment. All I can particularly recall is that I laughed, though neither

from a spirit of bravado nor from hysteria. And I wanted to smoke. Lord! how I

did want to smoke; but that was out of the question.

I watched the water rise until the little deck I stood on was awash, and then I

clambered once more to the top of the conning-tower. From the very slow

submergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing the entire trick

alone—that he was merely permitting the diving-tanks to fill and that the

diving-rudders were not in use. The throbbing of the engines ceased, and in its

stead came the steady vibration of the electric motors. The water was halfway

up the conning-tower! I had perhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried to

decide what I should do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustion

claimed me, or should I give up and end the agony at the first plunge?

From below came two muffled reports. They sounded not unlike shots. Was Benson

meeting with resistance? Personally it could mean little to me, for even though

my men might overcome the enemy, none would know of my predicament until long

after it was too late to succor me. The top of the conning-tower was now awash.

I clung to the wireless mast, while the great waves surged sometimes completely

over me.

I knew the end was near and, almost involuntarily, I did that which I had not

done since childhood—I prayed. After that I felt better.

I clung and waited, but the water rose no higher.

Instead it receded. Now the top of the conning-tower received only the crests

of the higher waves; now the little triangular deck below became visible! What

had occurred within? Did Benson believe me already gone, and was he emerging

because of that belief, or had he and his forces been vanquished? The suspense

was more wearing than that which I had endured while waiting for dissolution.

Presently the main deck came into view, and then the conning-tower opened

behind me, and I turned to look into the anxious face of Bradley. An expression

of relief overspread his features.

“Thank God, man!” was all he said as he reached forth and dragged me into the

tower. I was cold and numb and rather all in. Another few minutes would have

done for me, I am sure, but the warmth of the interior helped to revive me,

aided and abetted by some brandy which Bradley poured down my throat, from

which it nearly removed the membrane. That brandy would have revived a corpse.

When I got down into the centrale, I saw the Germans lined up on one side with

a couple of my men with pistols standing over them. Von Schoenvorts was among

them. On the floor lay Benson, moaning, and beyond him stood the girl, a

revolver in one hand. I looked about, bewildered.

“What has happened down here?” I asked. “Tell me!”

Bradley replied. “You see the result, sir,” he said. “It might have been a very

different result but for Miss La Rue. We were all asleep. Benson had relieved

the guard early in the evening; there was no one to watch him—no one but Miss

La Rue. She felt the submergence of the boat and came out of her room to

investigate. She was just in time to see Benson at the diving rudders. When he

saw her, he raised his pistol and fired point-blank at her, but he missed and

she fired—and didn’t miss. The two shots awakened everyone, and as our men were

armed, the result was inevitable as you see it; but it would have been very

different had it not been for Miss La Rue. It was she who closed the

diving-tank sea-cocks and roused Olson and me, and had the pumps started to

empty them.”

And there I had been thinking that through her machinations I had been lured to

the deck and to my death! I could have gone on my knees to her and begged her

forgiveness—or at least I could have, had I not been Anglo-Saxon. As it was, I

could only remove my soggy cap and bow and mumble my appreciation. She made no

reply—only turned and walked very rapidly toward her room. Could I have heard

aright? Was it really a sob that came floating back to me through the narrow

aisle of the _U_-33?

Benson died that night. He remained defiant almost to the last; but just before

he went out, he motioned to me, and I leaned over to catch the faintly

whispered words.

“I did it alone,” he said. “I did it because I hate you—I hate all your kind. I

was kicked out of your shipyard at Santa Monica. I was locked out of

California. I am an I. W. W. I became a German agent—not because I love them,

for I hate them too—but because I wanted to injure Americans, whom I hated

more. I threw the wireless apparatus overboard. I destroyed the chronometer and

the sextant. I devised a scheme for varying the compass to suit my wishes. I

told Wilson that I had seen the girl talking with von Schoenvorts, and I made

the poor egg think he had seen her doing the same thing. I am sorry—sorry that

my plans failed. I hate you.”

He didn’t die for a half-hour after that; nor did he speak again—aloud; but

just a few seconds before he went to meet his Maker, his lips moved in a faint

whisper; and as I leaned closer to catch his words, what do you suppose I

heard? “Now—I—lay me—down—to—sleep” That was all; Benson was dead. We threw his

body overboard.

The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with a lot of black

clouds which persisted for several days. We didn’t know what course we had been

holding, and there was no way of finding out, as we could no longer trust the

compass, not knowing what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of it

was that we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I’ll never

forget that day or its surprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed, that we were

somewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind, which had been blowing fitfully from

the east, suddenly veered around into the south, and presently we felt a sudden

chill.

“Peru!” snorted Olson. “When were yez after smellin’ iceber-rgs off Peru?”

Icebergs! “Icebergs, nothin’!” exclaimed one of the Englishmen. “Why, man, they

don’t come north of fourteen here in these waters.”

“Then,” replied Olson, “ye’re sout’ of fourteen, me b’y.”

We thought he was crazy; but he wasn’t, for that afternoon we sighted a great

berg south of us, and we’d been running north, we thought, for days. I can tell

you we were a discouraged lot; but we got a faint thrill of hope early the next

morning when the lookout bawled down the open hatch: “Land! Land northwest by

west!”

I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was; but my

interest was quickly dissipated by the sudden illness of three of the Germans.

Almost simultaneously they commenced vomiting. They couldn’t suggest any

explanation for it. I asked them what they had eaten, and found they had eaten

nothing other than the food cooked for all of us. “Have you drunk anything?” I

asked, for I knew that there was liquor aboard, and medicines in the same

locker.

“Only water,” moaned one of them. “We all drank water together this morning. We

opened a new tank. Maybe it was the water.”

I started an investigation which revealed a terrifying condition—some one,

probably Benson, had poisoned all the running water on the ship. It would have

been worse, though, had land not been in sight. The sight of land filled us

with renewed hope.

Our course had been altered, and we were rapidly approaching what appeared to

be a precipitous headland. Cliffs, seemingly rising perpendicularly out of the

sea, faded away into the mist upon either hand as we approached. The land

before us might have been a continent, so mighty appeared the shoreline; yet we

knew that we must be thousands of miles from the nearest western land-mass—New

Zealand or Australia.

We took our bearings with our crude and inaccurate instruments; we searched the

chart; we cudgeled our brains; and at last it was Bradley who suggested a

solution. He was in the tower and watching the compass, to which he called my

attention. The needle was pointing straight toward the land. Bradley swung the

helm hard to starboard. I could feel the _U_-33 respond, and yet the arrow

still clung straight and sure toward the distant cliffs.

“What do you make of it?” I asked him.

“Did you ever hear of Caproni?” he asked.

“An early Italian navigator?” I returned.

“Yes; he followed Cook about 1721. He is scarcely mentioned even by

contemporaneous historians—probably because he got into political difficulties

on his return to Italy. It was the fashion to scoff at his claims, but I recall

reading one of his works—his only one, I believe—in which he described a new

continent in the south seas, a continent made up of ‘some strange metal’ which

attracted the compass; a rockbound, inhospitable coast, without beach or

harbor, which extended for hundreds of miles. He could make no landing; nor in

the several days he cruised about it did he see sign of life. He called it

Caprona and sailed away. I believe, sir, that we are looking upon the coast of

Caprona, uncharted and forgotten for two hundred years.”

“If you are right, it might account for much of the deviation of the compass

during the past two days,” I suggested. “Caprona has been luring us upon her

deadly rocks. Well, we’ll accept her challenge. We’ll land upon Caprona. Along

that long front there must be a vulnerable spot. We will find it, Bradley, for

we must find it. We must find water on Caprona, or we must die.”

And so we approached the coast upon which no living eyes had ever rested.

Straight from the ocean’s depths rose towering cliffs, shot with brown and

blues and greens—withered moss and lichen and the verdigris of copper, and

everywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, were

of such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and now

and again we caught glimpses of verdure topping the rocky escarpment, as though

bush or jungle-land had pushed outward from a lush vegetation farther inland to

signal to an unseeing world that Caprona lived and joyed in life beyond her

austere and repellent coast.

But metaphor, however poetic, never slaked a dry throat. To enjoy Caprona’s

romantic suggestions we must have water, and so we came in close, always

sounding, and skirted the shore. As close in as we dared cruise, we found

fathomless depths, and always the same undented coastline of bald cliffs. As

darkness threatened, we drew away and lay well off the coast all night. We had

not as yet really commenced to suffer for lack of water; but I knew that it

would not be long before we did, and so at the first streak of dawn I moved in

again and once more took up the hopeless survey of the forbidding coast.

Toward noon we discovered a beach, the first we had seen. It was a narrow strip

of sand at the base of a part of the cliff that seemed lower than any we had

before scanned. At its foot, half buried in the sand, lay great boulders, mute

evidence that in a bygone age some mighty natural force had crumpled Caprona’s

barrier at this point. It was Bradley who first called our attention to a

strange object lying among the boulders above the surf.

“Looks like a man,” he said, and passed his glasses to me.

I looked long and carefully and could have sworn that the thing I saw was the

sprawled figure of a human being. Miss La Rue was on deck with us. I turned and

asked her to go below. Without a word she did as I bade. Then I stripped, and

as I did so, Nobs looked questioningly at me. He had been wont at home to enter

the surf with me, and evidently he had not forgotten it.

“What are you going to do, sir?” asked Olson.

“I’m going to see what that thing is on shore,” I replied. “If it’s a man, it

may mean that Caprona is inhabited, or it may merely mean that some poor devils

were shipwrecked here. I ought to be able to tell from the clothing which is

more near the truth.

“How about sharks?” queried Olson. “Sure, you ought to carry a knoife.”

“Here you are, sir,” cried one of the men.

It was a long slim blade he offered—one that I could carry between my teeth—and

so I accepted it gladly.

“Keep close in,” I directed Bradley, and then I dived over the side and struck

out for the narrow beach. There was another splash directly behind me, and

turning my head, I saw faithful old Nobs swimming valiantly in my wake.

The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily,

effecting an equally easy landing. The beach was composed largely of small

stones worn smooth by the action of water. There was little sand, though from

the deck of the _U_-33 the beach had appeared to be all sand, and I saw no

evidences of mollusca or crustacea such as are common to all beaches I have

previously seen. I attribute this to the fact of the smallness of the beach,

the enormous depth of surrounding water and the great distance at which Caprona

lies from her nearest neighbor.

As Nobs and I approached the recumbent figure farther up the beach, I was

appraised by my nose that whether man or not, the thing had once been organic

and alive, but that for some time it had been dead. Nobs halted, sniffed and

growled. A little later he sat down upon his haunches, raised his muzzle to the

heavens and bayed forth a most dismal howl. I shied a small stone at him and

bade him shut up—his uncanny noise made me nervous. When I had come quite close

to the thing, I still could not say whether it had been man or beast. The

carcass was badly swollen and partly decomposed. There was no sign of clothing

upon or about it. A fine, brownish hair covered the chest and abdomen, and the

face, the palms of the hands, the feet, the shoulders and back were practically

hairless. The creature must have been about the height of a fair sized man; its

features were similar to those of a man; yet had it been a man?

I could not say, for it resembled an ape no more than it did a man. Its large

toes protruded laterally as do those of the semiarboreal peoples of Borneo, the

Philippines and other remote regions where low types still persist. The

countenance might have been that of a cross between _Pithecanthropus_, the

Java ape-man, and a daughter of the Piltdown race of prehistoric Sussex. A

wooden cudgel lay beside the corpse.

Now this fact set me thinking. There was no wood of any description in sight.

There was nothing about the beach to suggest a wrecked mariner. There was

absolutely nothing about the body to suggest that it might possibly in life

have known a maritime experience. It was the body of a low type of man or a

high type of beast. In neither instance would it have been of a seafaring race.

Therefore I deduced that it was native to Caprona—that it lived inland, and

that it had fallen or been hurled from the cliffs above. Such being the case,

Caprona was inhabitable, if not inhabited, by man; but how to reach the

inhabitable interior! That was the question. A closer view of the cliffs than

had been afforded me from the deck of the _U_-33 only confirmed my

conviction that no mortal man could scale those perpendicular heights; there

was not a finger-hold, not a toe-hold, upon them. I turned away baffled.

Nobs and I met with no sharks upon our return journey to the submarine. My

report filled everyone with theories and speculations, and with renewed hope

and determination. They all reasoned along the same lines that I had

reasoned—the conclusions were obvious, but not the water. We were now thirstier

than ever.

The balance of that day we spent in continuing a minute and fruitless

exploration of the monotonous coast. There was not another break in the

frowning cliffs—not even another minute patch of pebbly beach. As the sun fell,

so did our spirits. I had tried to make advances to the girl again; but she

would have none of me, and so I was not only thirsty but otherwise sad and

downhearted. I was glad when the new day broke the hideous spell of a sleepless

night.

The morning’s search brought us no shred of hope. Caprona was impregnable—that

was the decision of all; yet we kept on. It must have been about two bells of

the afternoon watch that Bradley called my attention to the branch of a tree,

with leaves upon it, floating on the sea. “It may have been carried down to the

ocean by a river,” he suggested.

“Yes,” I replied, “it may have; it may have tumbled or been thrown off the top

of one of these cliffs.”

Bradley’s face fell. “I thought of that, too,” he replied, “but I wanted to

believe the other.”

“Right you are!” I cried. “We must believe the other until we prove it false.

We can’t afford to give up heart now, when we need heart most. The branch was

carried down by a river, and we are going to find that river.” I smote my open

palm with a clenched fist, to emphasize a determination unsupported by hope.

“There!” I cried suddenly. “See that, Bradley?” And I pointed at a spot closer

to shore. “See that, man!” Some flowers and grasses and another leafy branch

floated toward us. We both scanned the water and the coastline. Bradley

evidently discovered something, or at least thought that he had. He called down

for a bucket and a rope, and when they were passed up to him, he lowered the

former into the sea and drew it in filled with water. Of this he took a taste,

and straightening up, looked into my eyes with an expression of elation—as much

as to say “I told you so!”

“This water is warm,” he announced, “and fresh!”

I grabbed the bucket and tasted its contents. The water was very warm, and it

was fresh, but there was a most unpleasant taste to it.

“Did you ever taste water from a stagnant pool full of tadpoles?” Bradley

asked.

“That’s it,” I exclaimed, “—that’s just the taste exactly, though I haven’t

experienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowing stream, taste

thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least 70 or 80

Fahrenheit, possibly higher.”

“Yes,” agreed Bradley, “I should say higher; but where does it come from?”

“That is easily discovered now that we have found it,” I answered. “It can’t

come from the ocean; so it must come from the land. All that we have to do is

follow it, and sooner or later we shall come upon its source.”

We were already rather close in; but I ordered the _U_-33’s prow turned

inshore and we crept slowly along, constantly dipping up the water and tasting

it to assure ourselves that we didn’t get outside the fresh-water current.

There was a very light off-shore wind and scarcely any breakers, so that the

approach to the shore was continued without finding bottom; yet though we were

already quite close, we saw no indication of any indention in the coast from

which even a tiny brooklet might issue, and certainly no mouth of a large river

such as this must necessarily be to freshen the ocean even two hundred yards

from shore. The tide was running out, and this, together with the strong flow

of the freshwater current, would have prevented our going against the cliffs

even had we not been under power; as it was we had to buck the combined forces

in order to hold our position at all. We came up to within twenty-five feet of

the sheer wall, which loomed high above us. There was no break in its

forbidding face. As we watched the face of the waters and searched the cliff’s

high face, Olson suggested that the fresh water might come from a submarine

geyser. This, he said, would account for its heat; but even as he spoke a bush,

covered thickly with leaves and flowers, bubbled to the surface and floated off

astern.

“Flowering shrubs don’t thrive in the subterranean caverns from which geysers

spring,” suggested Bradley.

Olson shook his head. “It beats me,” he said.

“I’ve got it!” I exclaimed suddenly. “Look there!” And I pointed at the base of

the cliff ahead of us, which the receding tide was gradually exposing to our

view. They all looked, and all saw what I had seen—the top of a dark opening in

the rock, through which water was pouring out into the sea. “It’s the

subterranean channel of an inland river,” I cried. “It flows through a land

covered with vegetation—and therefore a land upon which the sun shines. No

subterranean caverns produce any order of plant life even remotely resembling

what we have seen disgorged by this river. Beyond those cliffs lie fertile

lands and fresh water—perhaps, game!”

“Yis, sir,” said Olson, “behoind the cliffs! Ye spoke a true word,

sir—behoind!”

Bradley laughed—a rather sorry laugh, though. “You might as well call our

attention to the fact, sir,” he said, “that science has indicated that there is

fresh water and vegetation on Mars.”

“Not at all,” I rejoined. “A U-boat isn’t constructed to navigate space, but it

is designed to travel below the surface of the water.”

“You’d be after sailin’ into that blank pocket?” asked Olson.

“I would, Olson,” I replied. “We haven’t one chance for life in a hundred

thousand if we don’t find food and water upon Caprona. This water coming out of

the cliff is not salt; but neither is it fit to drink, though each of us has

drunk. It is fair to assume that inland the river is fed by pure streams, that

there are fruits and herbs and game. Shall we lie out here and die of thirst

and starvation with a land of plenty possibly only a few hundred yards away? We

have the means for navigating a subterranean river. Are we too cowardly to

utilize this means?”

“Be afther goin’ to it,” said Olson.

“I’m willing to see it through,” agreed Bradley.

“Then under the bottom, wi’ the best o’ luck an’ give ’em hell!” cried a young

fellow who had been in the trenches.

“To the diving-stations!” I commanded, and in less than a minute the deck was

deserted, the conning-tower covers had slammed to and the _U_-33 was

submerging—possibly for the last time. I know that I had this feeling, and I

think that most of the others did.

As we went down, I sat in the tower with the searchlight projecting its

seemingly feeble rays ahead. We submerged very slowly and without headway more

than sufficient to keep her nose in the right direction, and as we went down, I

saw outlined ahead of us the black opening in the great cliff. It was an

opening that would have admitted a half-dozen U-boats at one and the same time,

roughly cylindrical in contour—and dark as the pit of perdition.

As I gave the command which sent the _U_-33 slowly ahead, I could not but

feel a certain uncanny presentiment of evil. Where were we going? What lay at

the end of this great sewer? Had we bidden farewell forever to the sunlight and

life, or were there before us dangers even greater than those which we now

faced? I tried to keep my mind from vain imagining by calling everything which

I observed to the eager ears below. I was the eyes of the whole company, and I

did my best not to fail them. We had advanced a hundred yards, perhaps, when

our first danger confronted us. Just ahead was a sharp right-angle turn in the

tunnel. I could see the river’s flotsam hurtling against the rocky wall upon

the left as it was driven on by the mighty current, and I feared for the safety

of the _U_-33 in making so sharp a turn under such adverse conditions; but

there was nothing for it but to try. I didn’t warn my fellows of the danger—it

could have but caused them useless apprehension, for if we were to be smashed

against the rocky wall, no power on earth could avert the quick end that would

come to us. I gave the command full speed ahead and went charging toward the

menace. I was forced to approach the dangerous left-hand wall in order to make

the turn, and I depended upon the power of the motors to carry us through the

surging waters in safety. Well, we made it; but it was a narrow squeak. As we

swung around, the full force of the current caught us and drove the stern

against the rocks; there was a thud which sent a tremor through the whole

craft, and then a moment of nasty grinding as the steel hull scraped the rock

wall. I expected momentarily the inrush of waters that would seal our doom; but

presently from below came the welcome word that all was well.

In another fifty yards there was a second turn, this time toward the left! but

it was more of a gentle curve, and we took it without trouble. After that it

was plain sailing, though as far as I could know, there might be most anything

ahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snapping-point every instant. After

the second turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred

and fifty and two hundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my

spirits rose accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight

ahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A

moment later we emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised the

periscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen.

We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks of which were

lined by giant, arboraceous ferns, raising their mighty fronds fifty, one

hundred, two hundred feet into the quiet air. Close by us something rose to the

surface of the river and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide,

distended jaws, and then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower

as the thing closed upon the periscope. A moment later it was gone, and I could

see again. Above the trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on batlike

wings—a creature large as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order of

a lizard. Then again something charged the periscope and blotted out the

mirror. I will confess that I was almost gasping for breath as I gave the

commands to emerge. Into what sort of strange land had fate guided us?

The instant the deck was awash, I opened the conning-tower hatch and stepped

out. In another minute the deck-hatch lifted, and those who were not on duty

below streamed up the ladder, Olson bringing Nobs under one arm. For several

minutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as

was I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as

might have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously

transported through ether to an unknown world. Even the grass upon the nearer

bank was unearthly—lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip a

brilliant flower—violet or yellow or carmine or blue—making as gorgeous a sward

as human imagination might conceive. But the life! It teemed. The tall,

fernlike trees were alive with monkeys, snakes, and lizards. Huge insects

hummed and buzzed hither and thither. Mighty forms could be seen moving upon

the ground in the thick forest, while the bosom of the river wriggled with

living things, and above flapped the wings of gigantic creatures such as we are

taught have been extinct throughout countless ages.

“Look!” cried Olson. “Would you look at the giraffe comin’ up out o’ the bottom

of the say?” We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy neck

surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the

back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from

it. It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill

hiss and came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in

length and closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of the

lower Jurassic. It charged us as savagely as a mad bull, and one would have

thought it intended to destroy and devour the mighty U-boat, as I verily

believe it did intend.

We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us with

distended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the four flippers with

which it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at a

rapid pace. When it reached the craft’s side, the jaws closed upon one of the

stanchions of the deck rail and tore it from its socket as though it had been a

toothpick stuck in putty. At this exhibition of titanic strength I think we all

simultaneously stepped backward, and Bradley drew his revolver and fired. The

bullet struck the thing in the neck, just above its body; but instead of

disabling it, merely increased its rage. Its hissing rose to a shrill scream as

it raised half its body out of water onto the sloping sides of the hull of the

_U_-33 and endeavored to scramble upon the deck to devour us. A dozen

shots rang out as we who were armed drew our pistols and fired at the thing;

but though struck several times, it showed no signs of succumbing and only

floundered farther aboard the submarine.

I had noticed that the girl had come on deck and was standing not far behind

me, and when I saw the danger to which we were all exposed, I turned and forced

her toward the hatch. We had not spoken for some days, and we did not speak

now; but she gave me a disdainful look, which was quite as eloquent as words,

and broke loose from my grasp. I saw I could do nothing with her unless I

exerted force, and so I turned with my back toward her that I might be in a

position to shield her from the strange reptile should it really succeed in

reaching the deck; and as I did so I saw the thing raise one flipper over the

rail, dart its head forward and with the quickness of lightning seize upon one

of the boches. I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the creature’s body in

an effort to force it to relinquish its prey; but I might as profitably have

shot at the sun.

Shrieking and screaming, the German was dragged from the deck, and the moment

the reptile was clear of the boat, it dived beneath the surface of the water

with its terrified prey. I think we were all more or less shaken by the

frightfulness of the tragedy—until Olson remarked that the balance of power now

rested where it belonged. Following the death of Benson we had been nine and

nine—nine Germans and nine “Allies,” as we called ourselves, now there were but

eight Germans. We never counted the girl on either side, I suppose because she

was a girl, though we knew well enough now that she was ours.

And so Olson’s remark helped to clear the atmosphere for the Allies at least,

and then our attention was once more directed toward the river, for around us

there had sprung up a perfect bedlam of screams and hisses and a seething

caldron of hideous reptiles, devoid of fear and filled only with hunger and

with rage. They clambered, squirmed and wriggled to the deck, forcing us

steadily backward, though we emptied our pistols into them. There were all

sorts and conditions of horrible things—huge, hideous, grotesque, monstrous—a

veritable Mesozoic nightmare. I saw that the girl was gotten below as quickly

as possible, and she took Nobs with her—poor Nobs had nearly barked his head

off; and I think, too, that for the first time since his littlest puppyhood he

had known fear; nor can I blame him. After the girl I sent Bradley and most of

the Allies and then the Germans who were on deck—von Schoenvorts being still in

irons below.

The creatures were approaching perilously close before I dropped through the

hatchway and slammed down the cover. Then I went into the tower and ordered

full speed ahead, hoping to distance the fearsome things; but it was useless.

Not only could any of them easily outdistance the _U_-33, but the further

upstream we progressed the greater the number of our besiegers, until fearful

of navigating a strange river at high speed, I gave orders to reduce and moved

slowly and majestically through the plunging, hissing mass. I was mighty glad

that our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside a submarine

rather than in any other form of vessel. I could readily understand how it

might have been that Caprona had been invaded in the past by venturesome

navigators without word of it ever reaching the outside world, for I can assure

you that only by submarine could man pass up that great sluggish river, alive.

We proceeded up the river for some forty miles before darkness overtook us. I

was afraid to submerge and lie on the bottom overnight for fear that the mud

might be deep enough to hold us, and as we could not hold with the anchor, I

ran in close to shore, and in a brief interim of attack from the reptiles we

made fast to a large tree. We also dipped up some of the river water and found

it, though quite warm, a little sweeter than before. We had food enough, and

with the water we were all quite refreshed; but we missed fresh meat. It had

been weeks, now, since we had tasted it, and the sight of the reptiles gave me

an idea—that a steak or two from one of them might not be bad eating. So I went

on deck with a rifle, twenty of which were aboard the _U_-33. At sight of

me a huge thing charged and climbed to the deck. I retreated to the top of the

conning-tower, and when it had raised its mighty bulk to the level of the

little deck on which I stood, I let it have a bullet right between the eyes.

The thing stopped then and looked at me a moment as much as to say: “Why this

thing has a stinger! I must be careful.” And then it reached out its long neck

and opened its mighty jaws and grabbed for me; but I wasn’t there. I had

tumbled backward into the tower, and I mighty near killed myself doing it. When

I glanced up, that little head on the end of its long neck was coming straight

down on top of me, and once more I tumbled into greater safety, sprawling upon

the floor of the centrale.

Olson was looking up, and seeing what was poking about in the tower, ran for an

ax; nor did he hesitate a moment when he returned with one, but sprang up the

ladder and commenced chopping away at that hideous face. The thing didn’t have

sufficient brainpan to entertain more than a single idea at once. Though

chopped and hacked, and with a bullethole between its eyes, it still persisted

madly in its attempt to get inside the tower and devour Olson, though its body

was many times the diameter of the hatch; nor did it cease its efforts until

after Olson had succeeded in decapitating it. Then the two men went on deck

through the main hatch, and while one kept watch, the other cut a hind quarter

off _Plesiosaurus Olsoni_, as Bradley dubbed the thing. Meantime Olson cut

off the long neck, saying that it would make fine soup. By the time we had

cleared away the blood and refuse in the tower, the cook had juicy steaks and a

steaming broth upon the electric stove, and the aroma arising from P. Olsoni

filled us all with a hitherto unfelt admiration for him and all his kind.