They Found Atlantis

by Dennis Wheatley

  It made the humans in the bathysphere realise more than anything else had done how completely cut off they were from that gay world of flowers and trees and sunshine thousands of feet above. They were staggered at their own temerity and momentarily appalled at the thought that they had dared to invade this vast kingdom of the unknown, far greater than all the land surfaces of the earth together, with no more promise of security than the single thin thread of cable, stretching now to nearly a mile in length, from which they dangled.

  Their thoughts were so occupied that they hardly noticed their descent of the last fifty fathoms. A sudden unexpected jar caused them to start from their seats in panic, but the Doctor’s voice reassured them.

  “We have made bottom—5,180 feet!”

  They stared out through the fuzed quartz windows hoping to see something although they hardly knew what. Not temples and palaces of course but perhaps a great section of wall or part of a pyramid and they were vaguely disappointed when they saw that the strong beam of blue light revealed nothing except a barrel shaped fish and part of a mushroom like jelly with a trailing yellow skirt.

  The bathysphere had landed on a gentle slope and so was tilted at an angle throwing the beam slightly up. The Doctor moved the lighting apparatus so that the long turquoise finger moved down towards the ground. Then they saw that they had landed on barren calcareous rock. There were no long waving fronds of seaweed, sea anemones, sponges of crustaceans to be seen. No trace at all of any undersea vegetation, for the multiform life of the beaches ceases entirely at a far lesser depth than that to which they had come being, like all vegetation dependent for existence on the light which filters down to it from the sun.

  “The bottom is of volcanic rock as I expected,” muttered the Doctor. “We will now proceed further. Oscar, tell them we ascend to five-thousand feet and then to move forward the ship one quarter mile.”

  “Why go up so high?” asked Camilla. “We couldn’t possibly see the bottom from there. Can’t they tow us along about six feet up?”

  “A necessary precaution Gnädige Herizogin. If we came suddenly to a submerged cliff face as the ships drags our sphere they would not have time to lift us over it owing to the length of the cable by which we hang. The sphere would crash against it and windows perhaps smash. This way our search will take much longer, but it is safer.”

  They were already rising and, after what seemed a long wait, felt the sphere begin to move gently forward through the ever changing constellations of coloured lights. It veered round to a new angle through the pressure on its big fixed rudder which ensured it travelling with its windows to the front, so that they could see what was ahead, whenever it made any lateral movement. They knew from the direction in which it had turned that they were being drawn over the downward slope of the rocky platform below and when, a few moments later, they were lowered again they landed upon a completely different type of bottom at 5,230 feet.

  A mist of tiny white particles rose like a cloud when the sphere came to rest as softly as though upon a bed of down and, as it cleared, the beam showed the reason. They were now in an undersea valley bottom into which the currents of the ocean floor had carried millions upon millions of shells, octopus beaks and teeth of long dead fish. They lay there white and even like a snowy carpet as far as the light beam carried the vision of the watchers in the sphere.

  “So! Here you see chalk deposits in formation,” remarked the Doctor and he swivelled the searchlight from side to side, but the shell carpet was unbroken by any huge monolith rounded by countless years of passing currents such as he had hoped to find.

  Suddenly a big squid inside the beam gave a violent jerk with all his tentacles and flicked away. At the same moment every light outside the searchlight’s path vanished and that frightening empty blackness supervened. The beam was broken by a large round knob and, as they realised what it was, they were utterly overcome by shock and amazement. A human face was staring in at them through the window.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE EMPIRE OF PERPETUAL NIGHT

  “Up!” shouted the Doctor, “up!” and a second after Oscar had spoken the one word “Emergency” into his mouthpiece the cable tightened jerking them away from the sea floor.

  “Oh God! what was it,” cried Camilla.

  “The Devil—the Devil himself!” exclaimed Vladimir making the sign of the Cross.

  Sally put her hand before her eyes. “That face!” she said. “That face! I’ve never seen anything more awful!”

  Count Axel sighed. “Yes, I have only once looked upon a grimmer thing and that was the head of a man who had had his face burned to the bone when I was studying medicine many years ago, but, after all, whatever it was it could not have harmed us in this little steel fortress of ours so I think it a great pity that we did not remain down there to examine it more closely.”

  The others shook their heads. They were in entire sympathy with Doctor Tisch who, scientist as he was, had been so repelled by that incredibly evil countenance that he had given way to the overwhelmingly powerful impulse to escape from its baleful gaze without a second’s delay. Now, he told Oscar to report all well and ask for them to be brought up in the usual stages; otherwise there would have been no time for the people on deck to coil down the hose containing the electric wires as it came in, and, as they slashed the ties, it would have slid down in a tangled coil while the cable was wound on to the drums.

  “I haf heard of such things,” the Doctor said huskily as he mopped the perspiration from his broad forehead with a big silk handkerchief. “But I did not believe. It was one such as we saw before who hunted after the big fish.”

  “Did you see its hands?” asked Sally with a shudder. “Ugh, they were horrible.”

  “And its teeth,” said Camilla shakily. “That vicious receding jaw full of pointed fangs, I could almost feel them snapping into me. I wanted to scream but I was too terrified. What was it, a special sort of fish or an unknown type of human which has adapted itself to living under water?”

  “It was a fish from the waist down and it had a thick scaly brownish tail,” Sally announced—“I saw it.”

  “So did I,” agreed Axel, “but it was a mammal, didn’t you notice its breasts? They were round and full as though moulded from a perfectly proportioned cup, and the only beautiful thing about it. The head seemed to me like that of a monkey.”

  “Yes, in a way. It had the same receding forehead but a monkey’s teeth don’t protrude like that, and this thing seemed to possess some horrible intelligence. Despite that flattened nose with the gaping nostrils it was more like the face of some unutterably depraved human.”

  “Undoubtedly it was a species which took to the water in the early stages of mammalian evolution,” remarked the Doctor who had now recovered from that unreasoning fear which had gripped them all, sufficiently to be thrilled by their discovery.

  “If you had told me of this thing I would have said ‘Go and tell it to the mariners’” declared Vladimir. “But by Crikey I was here and saw it with my own look.”

  In the hour and three-quarters which it took them to ascend to the surface, lights came and went, a hundred varieties of sea creatures swam through the beam or later became visible by natural light in the upper levels, yet the party could think and talk of nothing but this ferocious race of fish men who lived and hunted a mile below the waterline unknown and undreamed of by modern science.

  The McKay and Nicky were allowed aft again to meet their friends when the bathysphere had been hoisted on to its steel supports, and Sally, who was first out of the sphere ran up the ladder towards them. Her eyes were bright with excitement and her cheeks flaming.

  “We’ve seen a Mermaid!” she panted breathlessly.

  Nicky smiled, a tolerant but disbelieving smile. The McKay’s blue eyes twinkled.

  “Garn!” he “said with frank derision.

  “But we have I tell you—honestly,” Sally insisted.

  “And she had long golden
hair done up in plaits tied with blue ribbon, eh?” he smiled sarcastically.

  Sally shook her head. “No, it was beastly—the most revolting thing I’ve ever seen. It had a round head like a cannon ball and a short thick neck; hardly any shoulders, but two short arms which from the elbows down seemed to be only skin and bone. It had proper hands with long clutching skinny fingers and sharp nails like claws. The fingers were webbed I think, but I’m not certain about that. I only saw it for a second. Then it had little round upstanding breasts just like a well developed girl of sixteen. From the stomach down, though, it was a fish and all thick scaley tail.”

  “Pity you didn’t bring her up to meet us,” Nicky suggested still obviously disbelieving Sally’s story.

  “You would jolly soon have asked us to send her back again if we had. Her face—well you’d never believe that anything so hideous could ever have been created. She had hardly any nose, just two holes instead of nostrils, a receding head and jaw with two rows of sharp teeth that stuck out a couple of inches beyond her bared gums. Her eyes were the worst though, they were round and unblinking and full of sheer vicious murder.”

  “Had she any hair?” the McKay asked. He spoke quite seriously now and a queer look had come into his eyes. “Fair straight bristly stuff almost like the quills on a young porcupine.”

  “That’s right—that’s what it was like exactly but—” Sally paused and stared at him. “How in the world did you guess?”

  “By Jove! Jefferson wasn’t pulling my leg after all,” the McKay exclaimed softly.

  The others had arrived on deck and the gunmen now insisted on shepherding them all forward to the lounge, so Sally had to stifle her impatience to hear the McKay’s explanation.

  “Goodness I’m hungry,” Camilla cried as the gunmen left them, “D’you realise people that it’s getting on for five o’clock and we’ve had no lunch.”

  “I thought of that,” Nicky told her, “and asked them to start preparing something for you when you were about half way up.”

  “Nicky—you’re a thoughtful darling,” she cooed taking his arm as they walked down the companion-way. “You shall sit next to me while we eat. I suppose you fed ages ago yourself?”

  “Yes, the McKay gave me a first class licking at deck tennis and then we lunched as usual. It’s amazing how agile the old boy is; I’m a pretty fit man—have to be for my job—but he can knock spots off me where hopping round’s concerned.”

  “He’s not so old my dear, only forty something, and look at the life he’s led with the battles and bad weather he’s been through. It’s that and his grey hair which give him such a dried-up appearance, but he laughs as much as anybody and his ‘imperial carcass’ as he calls it is beautifully lean and muscular—I noticed it when he was swimming the other day.”

  Over their meal they talked again of the sub-human monster. It was the one enthralling topic which stood out from all the other weird and unusual sights which they had seen on their dive and the discussion of it even took their thoughts for the time being, from the fact that they were still prisoners, sentenced to exile upon a barren frozen rock.

  The moment they had finished Sally cornered the McKay and carried him off to a quiet corner of the foredeck.

  “Now Nelson Andy McKay,” she said, “you’re going to tell me just what you know about these extraordinary creatures.”

  “Well,” he smiled, “it’s like this. When I was on leave in England I used to be very fond of running down to Brighton for the week end. D’you know it—no, I see you don’t. Brighton’s a fine place, a few days there in the winter makes you feel twice your own man and then a bit more. I’d like to take you down for a couple of nights at the Magnificent—I—er beg your pardon. I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “You certainly should not unless your intentions are honourable.” Sally chuckled to cover her momentary confusion and added: “I’m a nice girl and don’t go away with young men for the week-end.”

  “Pity—sorry I mean,” murmured the McKay. “Anyhow, thank you for the young man part. However I’m a reasonably respectable person myself really and usually stay at the Royal Albion. That place has atmosphere and they always greet me as though I were their long lost son, besides Harry Preston who runs it is a great personality and has the biggest heart of—”

  “Now, now,” Sally interrupted, “I’ve heard of him even in the States—who hasn’t? Let’s get back to the Mermaid.”

  “Oh! Ah! the Mermaid. Well there is—or was—a fish and oyster shop just round the corner from the front, in West Street, and for years, up to about nineteen-twenty-nine, if I remember, they had a strange looking brute in a glass case always on show in the window. I often used to go and look at it on different leaves and it was only about three feet long but exactly like this monster that you say you’ve seen to-day.”

  “The thing we saw was only about four feet from head to tail as far as I could judge, not more than four foot six at the outside. But how amazing that they should have caught one. Were the people in the shop able to tell you anything about it?”

  “Not much. It was said to have been caught in African waters and brought home by an old sea captain about a hundred years ago. When I last went to look at it a waiter in the restaurant told me that it had been sold to some doctor who has a private museum of curiosities—at Arundel I think—and it’s probably there now. Of course I always looked on it as a fake, a baby seal perhaps that had been tampered with—they are round headed you know, or perhaps the forepart of a monkey grafted on to a fish’s tail. But the strange thing is that I did once meet a man who said he’d seen another like it.”

  “Really!” Sally exclaimed, “tell me, do.”

  “He was a chap called Jefferson, a Captain who was transferring from the West African Regiment to the West Indian Regiment after a spot of leave in England.

  “When he was ordered to report for duty to his new headquarters in Jamaica, he had the sense to apply for one of these liaison trips whereby soldiers become the guests of the Navy. It’s a chance for each side to swop ideas and talk a bit of shop you know, so as to have some sort of line on each other’s functions and work together better in the event of war. Anyhow he was allotted to the hooker that I was taking out to the West India station and a very amusing fellow he proved to be. We were exchanging yarns one night when the talk turned to Loch Ness Monsters, and sea serpents and the like so I told him about this queer fish I’d seen at Brighton. He was mighty interested in that and told me at once that he felt certain it couldn’t be a fake because he’s seen its twin in Africa—on the West Coast. It seems that he was miles from his base with a shooting party fairly near the coast and one day he went down to the shore—I’ve forgotten why now—and there he stumbled across one of these Mermaid things exactly the same in every particular as the one I had described. It was dead, of course, and must have been washed up in a storm. It was half rotten and stinking like blazes under the African sun when he found it but, despite that, he said that he would have given anything to have been able to take it back with him. As he tried to pick it up it fell to pieces in his hands and he was five days march from any place where he could have got a big jar of spirits to preserve the bits in so he just had to leave them there.”

  “Why did you think he was pulling your leg though?” Sally asked.

  The McKay closed one eye in a gentle wink. “Jefferson was a decent enough fellow but he had a peculiar sense of humour and I had a sort of feeling at the time that he had invented his little story just to persuade me that the Brighton fish was not a fake after all.”

  “What had he got to gain by doing that?”

  “The chance that I might start airing a serious belief in Mermaids to my brother officers. He was the sort of man who would have got a lot of quiet fun out of seeing me do that and I wasn’t having any. Still it seems as if he must have been telling the truth and that the Brighton beast was a genuine fish. I remember too how definitely we agreed that b
oth these things were the most vicious looking brutes we’d ever seen.”

  They remained together until cocktail time while Sally recounted, in what she felt to be totally inadequate words, her impressions of the marvellous things she had seen on her first dive. The others too had been busy discussing their experiences, comparing notes upon the wonders that they had glimpsed and persuading Nicky to accompany them on the next descent; for, having come to the conclusion that, evil as the fishmen appeared they could not possibly harm them in the bathysphere, they were all going down again the following day.

  When they met for dinner however, the topic of the wonder world that lay beneath their keel had been temporarily exhausted and the knowledge that they were still prisoners having again come uppermost in their hands, it irked and fretted them into stilted conversation punctuated by awkward silences.

  “Well,” Camilla said the moment the stewards had left them. “We were all pretty nervy yesterday, which was hardly to be wondered at after the shock we got in the early morning, and I think this undersea trip has at least helped to steady us up a bit, but time’s passing. It’s Monday evening now and on Saturday the balloon’s due to go up—we’ve only five days left. Has anybody had any brain waves as to how we can turn the tables on these crooks?”

  A gloomy silence was the only result of her enquiry.

  “We’ve got to do something before the week is out,” Sally announced after a moment.

  “You tell me what and I’ll do it m’dear,” the McKay said quite seriously. “The only thing I can think of is signalling a passing ship.”

  “Admirable, my dear Captain,” smiled Count Axel, “but, as you know the Azores lie about four hundred miles to the south of the great shipping track between North Europe and New York, and we are at least seventy from Punta Delgada, the capital of these islands, where the smaller shipping calls.”

  “True, O Count,” agreed the McKay, “and although I’ve been keeping my weather eye on the horizon, as they say in the story books, I’ve raised nothing but a smudge of smoke and a couple of local fishing boats in these last two days.”