Page:The Great Secret.djvu/95

Rh "I was still sinking and watching their white breasts and the cruel bites they gave each other, when suddenly I felt myself seized from below and dragged down with lightning speed to awful depths of green obscurity. A huge monster had swam up and caught me with its teeth by the arm, yet I felt no pain, only as if a firm clasp had gripped me.

"The three shark above, when they saw me snatched from them, left off mangling each other and darted after the thief, like swallows on the wing. Then began a deadly chase that interested me, despite my fears; indeed fear seemed to have left me now entirely with hope. There was also a benumbing feeling stealing over me, perhaps with the speed I was dragged down, yet which did not make me lose consciousness, even if I experienced no pain.

"Above me the waters spread like a dome of green-coloured glass dimly lighted. No sound reached my ears, as I shot downwards noiselessly and almost without a sensation of motion.

"I could see the sharks following and others gathering to the chase, with shoals of other fish getting rapidly out of the way. Strange shapes shot past me—things like pictures I had seen of antediluvian monsters—snakes with bat-like fins, and tendrils or tresses like sea-weed floating around them. We broke through the dense ranks of fish, small and large, and dashed those streamers aside impetuously.

"After a steady dive downwards, and while I was still speculating when we would reach the bottom of the ocean, of which there was yet no sign, my captor turned abruptly and went upward again in a