anything. I hoped it would get us through."

Thinking of what might have happened, Fallon shut his jaw hard. His voice was unnaturally steady as he asked, "What now?"

"Now you learn to operate the ship, in case something should happen to me." Bjarnsson's small blue eyes glinted through his helmet pane. "Too bad there is not a radio here, Fallon, so that you might broadcast as we go. As it is, I fear the world may miss a very exciting story."

"For God's sake," said Fallon wearily, and he wasn't swearing. "Let's not make this any tougher. Okay. This is the master switch...."

In the next twenty-four hours, Fallon learned to handle the submarine passably well. Built for a crew of two, the controls were fairly simple, once explained. Nothing else was touched. The only extra switch that mattered was the one that released the depth charge.

For an endless, monotonous hell, Fallon stood watch and watch about with Bjarnsson, one at the controls, one operating the battery of observation 'scopes, never sleeping. They saved on oxygen as a precaution, which added to the suffocating discomfort of the helmet-filters.

Black, close, nerve-rasping hours crawled by, became days. At last, Fallon, bent over the 'scope screen, licked the sweat from his thin lips and looked at Bjarnsson, a blurred dark hulk against the dim glow of the half-seen instrument panel.

Fallon's head ached. The hot stale air stank of oil. His body was tired and cramped and sweat-drenched, and the wound across his shoulders throbbed. He looked at the single narrow bunk.

There was nothing out there in the water but darkness. Even the deep-sea fish had felt the impulse and avoided the sub. Fallon got up.

"Bjarnsson," he said, "I'm going to sleep."

The explorer half turned in his seat.

"Ja?" he said quietly.

"There's nothing out there," growled Fallon. "Why should I sit and glare at that periscope?"

"Because," Bjarnsson returned with ominous gentleness, "there might be something. We will not reach the volcano for perhaps ten hours. You had better watch."

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