"Something is after me!" came the agonized cry of the man.
As the words left his lips a cry of horror broke from all on the dirigible's deck who were watching Sanborn's struggles.
A great arm, covered with mouths, like the ones the boys had seen absorb the rats, shot out of the sea. Another and another followed it, and hapless Sanborn, screaming in terror, was dragged from the structure of the aeroplane, to which he clung with a drowning man's clutch.
"It's a devil-fish," shouted the boys.
"Fire on the thing," shouted Malvoise, pouring the contents of his revolver down into the fleshy mass of the octopus.
Instantly a great cloud of inky fluid spread over the waters and into the opaque waves the waving arms sank, dragging with them to the depths of the sea the treacherous mechanic.
Shocked and sickened by the scene, the boys turned away and even Malvoise seemed powerfully affected. He hid his face in his hands as the wounded monster slowly sank without relinquishing its hold on its victim.
As for Constantio and a red-headed bushy-whiskered man, whom the boys learned later on was Sam Wells, one of the three men who helped in working the dirigible, they seemed completely unnerved by the sight they had witnessed. Malvoise's sharp voice recalled them to themselves.
"Come now, collect your wits," he shouted; "poor Sanborn's gone, and we can't save him. Cut loose from the aeroplane and haul up the rope-ladder. Constantio, you take the wheel. Wells, when you have got the ladder aboard, turn to and stow that stuff further aft."
He indicated the pile of treasure sacks.