Thrice she was swept round in the grip of the whirlpool, only to be drawn back once more to the foot of the fall, as the needle is drawn to the magnet. By some miraculous chance she escaped collision with the rocky walls which formed the basin of the boiling cauldron, although many times within an ace of destruction.
Then she was once more swept forward, and this time, escaping the power of the eddy, sped out into the river beyond.
A mile lower down she came to the surface and drifted on, her searchlight gleaming through the darkness like the eye of some huge aquatic monster. Hour after hour passed, and still she was borne gently forward on the bosom of the subterranean river. The roar of the fall died to a murmur as she floated on, and at length ceased altogether.
Past iron-toothed rocks she drifted, which reared their jagged crests threateningly amid the swirling waters; past huge caverns and grottoes, the stalactites of which flashed crystal like as the electric light penetrated for an instant into their dark obscurity; past seething mud-banks, in the midst of which foul, loathsome forms sprawled and wallowed.
And still her crew lay unconscious in the wheelhouse, knowing naught of the perils through which their craft was passing.
Slowly the force of the current expended itself, and at length the Seal, drifting into shoal water, grounded gently on a shelving bank of mud.
Then, out from the filth and mire of the mud-flats on either hand, hideous heads were thrust, and monstrous goggle eyes glared upon the motionless vessel.
Moving with a strange, shuffling motion, full a score of these horrible river-creatures—loathsome beyond all imagination—shambled towards the Seal.
Their great claws—hideous in their likeness to men’s hands—were outstretched eagerly, ravenously, and their green eyes were aglow with fiendish desire. Soon they reached the rail, and, gripping it, dragged their misshapen bodies aboard.
Gibbering and snarling, the monsters crept along the deck until they reached the turret, the glass of which appeared to puzzle them for some little time. Then one shambled to the rail and plunged over, returning shortly with a fragment of rock, with which he presently began to batter the glass.