The squid floundered. Its lashing tentacles hooked the fishes and flung them away. Its mouth sucked them in and swallowed them. But scores of the fishes gripped the tentacles and clung; others bit and tore at the soft, puffy flesh; still others swarmed at the monster’s protruding eyes, gouging them. . . .
The squid was in distress. It pulled itself to the wall below us and clung with its suckers. Then it let go, and ejecting a great stream of water from its mouth, forced itself swiftly backward. But the swarm of fishes still tore at it. One of its eyes went out. Its lacerated flesh gave a stench to the water that sickened us. . . .
Caan was plucking at me. “We must go—now while we have the chance. Og may call his fishes—set them on us—”
Where was Og? I had forgotten him. He had fled, doubtless. Then we heard his voice. He was hovering off in the open water; we heard him screaming angrily to the fishes, trying to call them off the squid—to set them again on our trail.
We started upward, close to the cliff-face. Og would not see us perhaps.
“Faster!” urged Caan. “We swim like children.”
Atar again led us in single file. I was last, swimming just after Nona. I turned to look downward. The squid was lashing the water in desperate fury. The fishes, many of them, were floating downward—inert. But many others, ignoring Og’s commands in their lust for blood, were still attacking. I saw Og now, well off to one side. A dozen or so of the fishes were gathered around him.
The water down there by the squid was lashed white. It caught what light there was and I could see everything plainly. Then, as the squid rolled over with a last despairing effort, I saw a great stream of inky black fluid issue from it. The ink spread. Everything turned to blackness. The squid, as a last desperate measure, had emptied its inkbag and under cover of the darkness was trying to escape. The water down there was a bowl of ink, out of which came the snarls of the fishes, and Og’s shrill voice shouting commands.
We mounted swiftly, for Nona and I were refreshed by our brief rest. Soon we were within sight of the horizontal slit in the cliff—the entrance to home! But again beneath us, we heard Og’s shouts and the deep-throated cries. They were after us.
Atar, leading us, abruptly stopped. My heart leaped to my throat. Was it another monster ahead? It was something. There was something sweeping toward us! Not slowly, ponderously this time—but swift almost as a thrown spear! From up near the horizontal passage we saw it coming—small, a dim blob at first, with a little V-shaped white wake behind it. Larger, closer—a few seconds only, while we huddled together, wholly confused.