"We are caught!" exclaimed the professor.
"So we are!"
The windows in the conning tower were darkened. The big sucker had thrown itself forward and spread itself over the glass, clasping its horrible form half way about the submarine.
"Let's look at the other windows! There may be only one of the creatures!" Mr. Henderson exclaimed, as he hurried down the companion way and into the main cabin. He threw back the slides covering the glass.
The sight that met his eyes caused him to recoil in horror. There, pressing their shapes against the steel sides, and over the bull's-eyes of the ship were two more of the gigantic suckers!
The ship had now ceased to move, and Washington, in the engine room, feeling that something was wrong, had shut off the power. The adventurers were caught in a trap more terrible than that of the ice, the volcanic mountain, or the Sargasso Sea. It was a trap from which they might never escape.
The suckers, thinking the submarine was perhaps a species of fish, like themselves, and one of their enemies, had fastened on it their fatal vice-like grip. To move through the water, with the weight of all that clinging flesh was impossible.
"What sort of creatures are they?" asked Jack, speaking in a whisper, so great was the terror inspired by the presence of the gigantic sea suckers.
"I never saw any of them before," replied the professor, "but I have read about them. They live only in the polar regions and are a species of octupus, only more terrible. Their powers of suction are enormous, and once they fasten on a fish or animal they never let go until they have absorbed it completely. They act in the same way that a star fish does on an oyster."
"But they can't eat the ship," said Jack.