Dennis Wheatley - They Found Atlantis

'They'll eat you all right if anything goes wrong with that sphere, but I wouldn't mind having a cut at that meself.'

'Nelson! —Andy! —McKay!'

'Did you see any more curiosities?'

'The biggest squid the Doctor's seen so far. An awful brute, its tentacles must have been at least forty feet long— but nothing really new. Oh, except that the Mermen have horses.'

'Now come on,' he smiled at her quizzically. 'You must save that for the marines!'

'Well, not horses exactly, but they ride on other fish. At least that's what we imagine. On three seperate occasions we saw one of them go by in the distance with its body lying along the top of a thing rather like a small shark and their claws dug into the back of its neck. They may have just been attacking it to kill and eat, of course, but it didn't look like that. They don't swim very fast themselves you see and those fish they perch on just stream through the water like a flash.'

'They say wonders will never cease—so I'll take your word for it. Now what about a swim before the cocktails come round?'

'Love to,' said Sally. 'I missed my dip this morning.'

'Right, skip to it m'dear, and I'll meet you at the pool in five minutes.'

At dinner that night it was Nicky who kept the conversation going. He had fallen utterly and completely for this new world which his trip in the bathysphere had opened up to him. Towards the end of the meal he had talked himself almost into a state of artistic inspiration and suddenly announced a marvellous idea which had just entered his mind. Here was ideal material for a new super-film. A spot of drama in the bathysphere perhaps, then all the underwater stuff with squids and scenes of the Mermen. One of the Mermaids would have to be lovely, of course, a swan among the ducks, actually she'd be a star with a first class voice so that she could come up to the surface and sing opposite him, just as they'd done in the old stories about their luring sailors to their deaths. It could all be filmed by back projection except the above water level scenes, and those of the interior of the bathysphere could be shot in the studio easily enough against the background of a half sphere made of wood.

Everybody thought it was a fine idea until the McKay remarked that Nicky would have plenty of time to practise crooning his theme song to the Mermaid—in the Falklands.

An angry silence ensued after this piece of acidity and, when coffee had been served they commenced their gloomy speculations once again.

The McKay was asked if he had seen any shipping during the day, and he replied, abruptly:

'You would have heard about it before this if I had—I didn't set eyes on a masthead and I'm beginning to doubt if anything will ever come near enough to us in these unfrequented waters to be any good.'

'Oh dear, oh dear,' Sally looked across at him despairingly. 'What are we going to do—we can't just sit still and let things take their course.'

' 'Fraid there's no alternative m'dear until these gunmen get fed up with their job and slacken off. There's no sign of that yet though. A better disciplined set of men I've never seen. I tried to speak to one this afternoon but he just quietly pointed his pistol at me and he would have used it too, I believe, if I hadn't stopped.'

'Oh, they're well disciplined I admit,' Camilla conceded. 'Quiet as mice although they're always close at hand. It's extraordinary how polite they are too in stepping aside and that sort of thing when we go aft to the bathysphere, despite the fact they never open their mouths. They're nothing like I've always pictured gangsters and hoodlums to be at all.'

'They are not like ordinary gangsters,' said Count Axel with conviction. 'But neither is their Chief like any ordinary boss racketeer.

Nicky nodded. 'If he cleans up on Camilla's packet he'll be the biggest shot since A1 Capone was put behind the bars."

'He won't—but he'll come back,' Sally insisted, 'and we've just got to think of some way to save ourselves before he turns up.'

The now sickening subject was miserably debated again but by the time Slinger arrived with his guards to see them to bed they had only become exceedingly irritable without having produced a single new idea.

On Wednesday all of them except the McKay went down again in the bathysphere at nine o'clock, taking with them a picnic luncheon. The ship covered about six miles in a new direction with continual stops to haul them up 200 feet before proceeding and then lowering them to the bottom again; it was nearly six o'clock when they returned to the surface, but, despite the usual excitement which always seemed to possess them for an hour or two after each dive, they had nothing startling to report.

Several new varieties of deep sea creatures had appeared in the beam and they had seen more Mermen apparently riding their swift fish horses to unknown destinations, but the bottom they had traversed was all bare volcanic rock with the exception of two new shell strewn valleys, and there was nothing to indicate the presence of the lost city for which they were searching.

'D'you know you've been cooped up in that thing for close on nine hours, the McKay asked Sally as they went in for their belated evening swim.

'Really,' she replied casually. 'It doesn't seem as though we had beenj down half that time to me. Every second of it is so vitally interesting, I even forgot to eat more than one of the sandwiches we took down so I'm just dying for dinner now.'

'But isn't there a most appalling fug—I wonder you haven't all got splitting headaches in spite of the oxygen that keeps you from passing out.'

'No, it's amazing really. The air in the sphere was as fresh when we came out of it just now, as when we climbed in at nine o'clock. The Doctor allows one litre of oxygen per person per minute to escape from the tanks and that seems to do the trick.

'How about the temperature—isn't it darn near freezing?'

'Not inside. It drops about six degrees in the first two-thousand feet, but after that you don't get the benefit of the sun anyhow and it doesn't alter so quickly, two degrees in the next thousand and only one degree for the last two-thousand to the bottom if I remember right. It was never lower than sixty-six degrees today, the Doctor said so as we were coming up, although outside it's ever so much colder and if you touch the walls of the sphere they feel like ice.

After] dinner the McKay was asked if he had sighted any ships during the day and he informed his fellow prisoners that at about two o'clock a fishing boat had tried to come alongside—probably in the hope of selling some of its catch.

'I've had this all packed up ever since Sunday,' he added producing a flat tobacco tin from his pocket. 'It contains a full report of our situation and a request for immediate assistance addressed to the Chief of Police in the Azores, also a fair sized bank note to ensure its delivery and a promise of more substantial reward to follow if help is secured for us without delay. I meant to chuck it down to one of the fishermen if such a chance occurred but unfortunately Captain Ardow was on the bridge and he ordered this little craft to sheer off, through his megaphone before it was anywhere near the distance I could throw the tin.'

Sally was cheered a little to think that although he had said nothing of this idea he was exercising his wits to plan such measures which might yet lead to their release but she started in on her old cry that Kate would return with diabolical intent in a few days' time and that they had simply got to do something definite before he put in an appearance.

'Yes,' Camilla sighed, 'do you realise that four whole days have gone and we haven't thought of a single practical idea between us? In three days now my death will be announced and then we shall be really up against it. Oh, what are we going to do?