He lay for a moment gasping for breath, neither knowing nor caring whether any bones were cracked. Then he gathered himself for a supreme effort. His body was one solid ache as tortured muscles strained to obey his will.
"Look!" he gasped hoarsely, flashlight pointing. "Look—behind—!"
McGruder, struggling dazedly to his feet with the girl still clutched in his embrace, swung around at the warning, but it was already too late. A great seam had opened in the hull directly behind him, and a mass of ooze was pouring in, like a surge of lava.
Caught off-balance, he stumbled and slipped on one knee in the encroaching tide. As he floundered a bellow like that of a mired bull escaped his distorted lips. He was gripped tenaciously by the pitiless exudation. His eyes roved frantically. Then, as Marlin dragged himself partly erect, he saw McGruder do an incredible thing.
Desperately, the detective twisted himself half around, with the girl in his arms, and forced her into the viscous tide. She struggled in a faintly bewildered manner. Bracing himself against her body, he gained a leverage which enabled him to release, first one foot and then the other. As he stumbled free, the girl was engulfed, almost before she could cry out.
In that moment of horror, Marlin was conscious only of a consuming rage—a lust to kill that obliterated all else. Forgetful of the automatic, he dived toward McGruder, with hands that had suddenly become claws.
"Don't! Don't! We've got to squeeze out of here! Before it catches—"
McGruder's screaming protest was strangled as ruthless fingers closed around his windpipe.
When the smothering ooze closed over both heaving bodies, Marlin was scarcely aware, through the red fury of his demoniac rage, that the end had come....