Анатолий Днепров - Crabs on the island

If I had realized the monster was making for him, I would have rushed to his aid immediately; but the direction in which the machine was moving seemed so vague that I thought at first it was going into the sea. And it was only when, having just touched the water with its feet, it turned abruptly and moved rapidly towards Cookling that I dropped the things I was carrying and ran forward.

The "ichthyosaurus" stopped by him and squatted slightly. I saw the ends of its long tentacles working in the sand just by his face.

The next moment the heap had become a great sand cloud. Cookling had jumped up as though stung and, panic-stricken, was trying to break away from the monster.

But it was too late.

The slender tentacles had wound themselves tightly round his thick neck and were lifting him up, towards the mouth of the machine. Cookling hung helplessly in -the air, his arms and legs dangling grotesquely.

Though I detested him with all my heart, nevertheless I could not allow him to perish in a fight with an irrational metal freak. Without thinking I seized the tall claws of the crab and pulled with all my strength. But I might as well have tried to pull over a steel post driven deep into the ground. The "ichthyosaurus" did not even budge.

I reached up and got on its back. For an instant Cookling's distorted face came level with mine. "His teeth!" suddenly crossed my mind. "His stainless steel false teeth!"

I struck the parabolic mirror, shining in the sunlight, as hard as I could with my fist.

The crab spun round as it stood. Cookling's livid face and bulging eyes were now level with the mouth of the workshop. Then something horrible happened. An electric spark struck his forehead and temples. The crab's tentacles suddenly relaxed, and the heavy lifeless body of the creator of this iron plague crashed down on the sand.

While I was burying him, several huge crabs were chasing each other over the island, taking absolutely no notice either of me or the corpse.

I wrapped it in the canvas of the tent and buried him in a shallow grave in the sand in the middle of the island and did so with no feeling whatsoever of regret. My parched mouth was gritty with sand and I was inwardly cursing the dead man for his horrible invention. From the point of view of Christian ethics, I committed a terrible sacrilege.

After that I lay motionless on the beach for several days on end, watching the horizon where the "Dove" should appear. Time dragged with agonizing slowness and the pitiless sun seemed to have stopped above my head. From time to time I crawled down to the water and dipped my scorched face in it.

To forget my hunger and terrible thirst I tried to think of abstract things. I thought of how many able people in our days had used the powers of reason to do harm to others. Cookling's invention, for instance. I was sure it could have been used to good purpose-in metal-mining, possibly. The evolution of these creatures could have been so directed that they might have performed that function with the utmost proficiency. I came to the conclusion that if the machine had been perfected properly it would not have degenerated into a gigantic clumsy monster.

One day a great round shadow fell across me. I raised my head with difficulty and looked to see what had come between me and the sun. I found that I was lying between the tentacles of an enormous giant of a crab which had come down to the water's edge and seemed to be watching the horizon and waiting for something.

Then I began to have hallucinations. In my fevered brain the gigantic crab became a vat of fresh water raised so high that I couldn't reach the top.

I came to on board the schooner. When Captain Gale asked me whether they should take aboard the huge, strange-looking mechanism lying on the beach, I answered that for the present it was quite unnecessary.