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The Silver Menace
Murray Leinster
[Transcriber's Note: This etext produced from The Thrill Book, September 1, 1919 and September 15, 1919]
The yacht was plowing through the calm waters with a steady throbbingof the engines. The soft washing of the waves along the sides, themurmur of the wind through the light rigging aloft, and the occasionallight footstep of the navigating officer on the bridge were the onlysounds.
The long white vessel swept on through the night in silence. Here andthere a light showed from some port-hole or window, but for the mostpart the whole boat was dark and silent. For once the yacht containedno merry party of guests to one-step on the wide decks and fill all theobscurer corners with accurately paired couples.
Alexander Morrison, millionaire steamship magnate, and his daughterNita had the ship to themselves. They were sitting in two of the bigwicker chairs on the after deck, and the glow of Morrison's cigar wasthe only light.
"Getting chilly, Nita," he remarked casually. "Are you warm enough?"
"Yes, indeed." Nita was silent for a moment, gazing off into thedarkness. "It's nice," she said reflectively, "to be by one's self fora while. I'm glad you didn't invite a lot of people to come back withus."
Her father smiled.
"Judging by the way you behaved along the Riviera," he reminded her,"you didn't mind company. I never saw any one quite so run after asyou were."
Nita shook her head.
"They were running after you, daddy," she said lightly. "I was just ameans of approach."
Her father puffed on his cigar for a moment in silence.
"It is a disadvantage, having a millionaire for a father," he admitted."It's hard to tell who is in love with you, and who is in love withyour father's money."
"So the thing to do, I suppose," said Nita amusedly, "is just to fallin love with some one yourself, and pay no attention to his motives."
"Where do you get your notions?" asked her father. "That's cynicism.You haven't been practicing on that theory, have you?"
"Not I," said Nita with a little silvery laugh. "But you know, daddy,it isn't nice to feel like a money bag with a lot of people looking atyou all the time, some of them enviously and some of them covetously,but none of them regarding you just like a human being."
"I don't see," declared her father, with real affection, "how anynormal young man who looked at you could stop thinking about you longenough to think about your money."
"I rise and bow," said Nita mischievously. "May I return thecompliment, substituting 'young woman' for 'young man'?"
"Don't try to fool your father," that gentleman said with a smile. Headded with something of conscious pride: "I don't suppose there are twoother men in America as homely as I am."
"Daddy!" protested Nita, laughing. "You're lovely to look at! Iwouldn't have you look a bit different for worlds."
"Neither would I have myself look different," her father admittedcheerfully. "I've gotten used to myself this way. I like to look atmyself this way. It's an acquired taste like olives, but once youlearn to like me this way--why, there you are."
Nita laughed and was silent. Suddenly she began to look a little bitpuzzled.
"Do you notice anything funny?" she asked in a moment or so. "Somehow,the boat doesn't seem to be traveling just right."
Her father listened. Only the usual sounds came to his ears. Thewashing of the waves along the sides, however, had a peculiar timbre.Then he noticed that the boat seemed to be checking a little in itsspeed. There was an odd, velvety quality in the checking, very muchlike the soft breaking effect felt when a motor boat runs into a patchof weed.
"Queer," said Morrison. "We'll ask the captain."
The two of them walked down the deck arm in arm until they came to thestair ladder leading up to the bridge. The gentle checking continued.The boat seemed to be gradually slowing up, though the engines throbbedon as before.
"What's the matter, captain?" asked Morrison.
His first mate answered:
"I've sent for the captain, sir. Our speed has fallen off three knotsin the past five minutes."
The captain came hastily up on the bridge, buttoning up his coat as hecame.
"What's the matter, Mr. Harrison?"
The first mate turned a worried face to him.
"Our speed has dropped off three knots in five minutes, sir, and seemsto be still slackening. I thought it best to send for you."
The captain called up the engine room.
"All right down there?"
"Per-rhaps," came the answer in a thick Scotch burr. "Ah was aboot toask ye the same mysel'. We're usin' twenty perr cent more steam for thesame number of rrevolutions."
"We might have run into a big patch of seaweed," suggested the firstmate.
"Unship the searchlight," said the captain crisply.
A seaman came up to the bridge. He had been sent back to look at thepatent log.
"We're logging eight knots now, sir."
The first mate uttered an exclamation.
"That's six knots off what we were making ten minutes ago!"
No one spoke for a moment or so, while one or two seamen worked at thelashing of the cover on the searchlight.
"Do any of you smell anything?" asked Nita suddenly.
A faint but distinct odor came to their nostrils. It was the odor ofslime and mud, with a tinge of musk. It was the scent of foul thingsfrom the water. It was a damp and humid smell, indistinctly musklikeand disgusting.
"Like deep-sea mud," said one of the seamen to the other. "Likesomethin' come up from Gawd knows what soundin'."
Nita gasped a little. The searchlight sputtered and then a long, whitepencil of light shot out over the water. It wavered, and sank to apoint just beside the bow of the boat. It showed--nothing.
The bow wave rose reluctantly and traveled but a little distance beforeit subsided into level sea. There were no waves. The water was calm asan inland lake.
"No seaweed there," said the captain sharply. "Look on the other side."
The searchlight swept across the deck and to the water on the otherside. Nothing. The water seemed to be turgidly white, but that wasall. It was not clear; it was rather muddy and almost milklike, as ifa little finely divided chalk had been stirred in it. There was nodisturbance of its placid surface. Only the reluctant bow wave surgedaway from the sharp prow of the yacht.
The seaman returned from a second trip to the patent log.
"We're logging five knots now, sir."
"Nine knots off," said the first mate with a white face. "We weremaking fourteen."
"We'll take a look all around," said the captain sharply.
The searchlight obediently swept the surface of the water. Every oneon the bridge followed its exploring beam with anxious eyes. Thatmusky, musty smell of things from unthinkable depths and the mysteriousretardation of their vessel filled them with apprehension.
There was not one of them, from the ignorant seamen to thesupereducated Morrison, who did not look fearfully where the light beamwent.
The hand laid on the vessel--that in a calm sea had slowed fromfourteen knots to five, despite the mighty engines within thehull--that force seemed of such malignant power that none of them wouldhave been greatly surprised to see the huge bulk of some fabled Krakenrearing itself above the water, preparing to engulf the yacht with asweep of some colossal tentacle.
The sea was calm. As far as the searchlight could light up its surfacenot a wave broke its calm placidity.
The seaman returned from his third visit to the patent lo
g.
"Two knots, sir!"
The movement of the yacht became slower and slower as it graduallychecked in its sweep through the water. The throbbing of the enginesgrew louder as they labored with increasing effort to master themysterious Thing that was holding them back.
The boat was barely creeping now. It seemed to be struggling againstsome invisible force that gripped gently but relentlessly, someinfinitely patient force that from the very patience of its operationwas the more evidently inexorable.
The engines were working in panic-stricken tempo now. The chiefengineer had given them all the steam they would take, and thepropellers thrashed the water mightily, but the ship slowed, slowed.
At last it was still, while the engines seemed to be trying to rackthemselves to pieces in their terrific attempt to drive the shipagainst the Thing that held it back.
The captain watched with a set face, then ordered the engines reversed.There was an instant's pause, and the propellers took up theirthrashing of the water again. For a moment it seemed that they wouldhave some effect. The yacht shivered and moved slightly backward, butthen stopped again with the same soft gentleness.
The seamen inspected the water all around the ship with lanternslowered to the water's edge. They found nothing. A sounding line wasthrown overboard, and sank for two hundred fathoms without reachingbottom.
The searchlight played endlessly over the water, trying to find someturmoil that might indicate the presence of a monster whose tentacleshad fastened upon the ship, but without result. The surface of thewater was like glass.
Again and again the engines struggled mightily to move the ship. Againand again the propellers beat the water at the stern into froth andfoam, but never did the yacht move by as much as an inch.
The sea was calm and placid. The stars looked down from the moonlesssky and were reflected by the still surface of the water.
The yacht struggled like a living thing to break free from themysterious force that held her fast, while all about her there hungthat faintly disgusting odor of slime from the depths of the sea, anindistinctly musky odor as of something unclean.
At last the wireless began to crackle a frantic appeal for help, givingthe details of what was happening on board the yacht. Hardly had themessage finished when the yacht began to rock slightly, as from a faintground swell.
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