He clutched wildly at Rawson, missed him, and rolled down the glassy slope into the pool.
The ooze parted heavily, with effort, and then surrounded him like a huge, sucking mouth.
The man screamed. "Quicksand! Help! It's sucking me down——eeeeeh—"
With horror Rawson saw the white, slimy mess suck him down—down—
Rawson's voice screamed against the shriek of the wind. "Throw him a line!"
The man's struggling head sank below the surface. A frantic hand fought against the ooze, sank steadily deeper. The hand disappeared. Bubbles from the man's dying breath broke the surface. The slime drifted together again and was smooth and liquid again with the peace of death.
Rawson shuddered.
He stared at Durk who was looking dumbfounded into the pool. One of the crew had been lost under Durk's command. Would there be others?
When the chill winds of night came, Rawson was sitting inside a cave that looked down on the sink hole.
Rawson was carefully, meticulously, studying the crew and the lay of the land, like a general studies the ground before a battle.