Across from us, almost at the same level, was that other ledge on which we had formerly perched. Behind it, its tunnel showed as a small circle of blackness. Perhaps we could swim across the cave unnoticed—get into that other, now familiar, passageway—then through the coral barrier and into the open water. . . To safety. . . Unless the monster were still there. . .
Atar aroused me from these thoughts. He was pointing downward into the cave.
“Nemo. Caan. What is he doing there?”
On the platform, Og and three of the white old men were gathered. Around them a small school of fishes was swimming. Ten or twenty fishes—short, squat things, two or three feet long, smooth, dull black skins, and with huge distended mouths. For all their size there was about them an aspect of extraordinary strength—their powerful squat build, the alertness of their movements.
My heart almost stopped with the sudden realization that these fishes—or were they fishes?—were not swimming aimlessly, but were waiting for Og’s command! Like a pack of trained animals they circled about their master. Then Og called to them. They answered with full-throated, yelping cries! Fishes with voices, you exclaim? You need not be amazed. There are “shouting fishes” even in your own waters of Earth.
Og was bending over the shell where Nona had been bound. The rushes that had bound her and which Atar had cut, were still lying there. At Og’s call these swimming creatures gathered around him eagerly. The sound of their voices—yelping, whining—was blood-curdling. Og was raising up the severed bonds—holding them out; and the fishes were smelling of them!
Then, in a pack they gathered; and Og, leading them, swam with them across the cave up near its ceiling to that other ledge from whence, with Nona, we had made our escape.
The black fishes entered the other passageway, with Og and half a dozen other Maagogs after them. As they swept down into it, their gruesome cries died away into the distance.
You, with your knowledge of similar things, will doubtless think it stupid of us to be puzzled at the meaning of all this—at its danger to us. Yet—we had no way of knowing. We stared at each other, relieved that these ugly black things which uncannily answered Og’s commands, had disappeared.
“Nemo! You are hurt!” It was Nona, who now had noticed that my arm was bleeding where the Maagog girl’s dagger had ripped it.