“As for the wind, there would surely be a sea-breeze on the coast of a continent so large as Adam Ulnar described.
At this time in the morning the wind should just be rising from the sea, as the air over the land-mass begins to warm and ascend.”
“So we swim with the wind? Toward the west?”
“Our best chance, I think, though the reasoning is based on a very incomplete astronomical and geographical knowledge of the planet.
Too bad we couldn’t have got a glimpse of the continent, through this murk, as we fell.
For it could easily be that we aren’t near the coast at all, but simply over some shoal.
But I think our best chance is to swim with the wind.”
They struck out away from the red sun.
John Star with a steady, effortless crawl.
Hal Samdu breaking the water with slow, powerful strokes.
Jay Kalam swimming with a deliberate, noiseless efficiency.
Giles Habibula puffing, splashing, falling a little behind.
For a time that seemed hours, they swam, until he gasped:
“For sweet life’s sake! Let’s rest a bit!
What’s the mortal hurry?”
“We may as well,” agreed Jay Kalam.
“The shore may be within two miles. Or it may be two hundred, or two thousand.”
They treaded water for a time, and then swam on again with slow, weary determination.
At first they had noticed nothing unusual in the air.
But John Star presently became aware of an irritation of his eyes and nostrils, an oppression in his laboring lungs.
He found himself coughing a little; presently he heard the others coughing.
The unpleasant fate of those survivors of Eric Ulnar’s expedition came to his mind, but he kept his silence.
It was Giles Habibula who spoke:
“This red and fearful air!
Already it’s choking me to death!
Poor old Giles!
Ah, it’s not enough that he should be flung into the unknown ocean of an alien, monstrous planet, to die swimming like a luckless rat in a tub of buttermilk.
“Ah, mortal me!
That’s not enough!
He must be poisoned with this wicked red gas, that will make a raving mortal maniac out of him, and eat the very flesh off his poor old bones with an evil green leprosy!
Poor old soldier———”
A tremendous splash cut short his melancholy wheezing; a huge, tapering body, black and glistening, had plunged above the yellow surface behind him, and dived cleanly back.
“My blessed bones!” he gasped.
“Some fearful whale, come to swallow all of us!”
Unpleasantly aware that they were drawing the attention of the unknown denizens of the yellow sea, they all swam harder—until the creature leaped again, in front of them.
“Don’t exhaust yourselves,” Jay Kalam’s calm voice came above their frantic splashing.
“We can’t distance it.
But perhaps it won’t attack.”
Then Giles Habibula sobbed abruptly:
“Another monstrous horror!”
They saw a curving, saw-toothed black fin, cutting the oily yellow surface not far away.
It swept toward them, cleaved a complete circle about them, and vanished for a tune, only to appear again and cut another circle.
“They’re making us a precious circus,” wheezed Giles Habibula.
“And then, no doubt, a wicked feast!”
“Look, there ahead!” boomed keen-eyed Hal Samdu, abruptly.
“Something black, floating.”
John Star soon made it out, a long black object, low in the water, still veiled in the sullen, red-yellow murk.
“Can’t tell what it is.
Might be a log.
Or something swimming.”