information, and he had scarcely finished when I saw him suddenly pause, peer ahead into the gloom, and then hurry forward, signing me to follow. In the greenish half-light I saw that we were approaching the end of the hall and that up against the wall was what appeared to be a huge marble altar.
And then I saw Wynona, Princess of Atlantis.
She was laid out there in her crystal tomb. Her eyes, with their glorious blue, were open and smiling; the roses were still in her cheeks; the very pink was in her fingernails! I suppose I was a bit wrought up, for I could have sworn that she moved and smiled up at us. Dr. Tyrrel had dropped on one knee, his hands clasping the sides of her bier and now he crouched there, peering through the glass of his helmet at this lovely handiwork of God. I do not know whether he cried out with the marvel of it, but I know that I did, for the sound echoed and re-echoed within the confines of my glass-and-rubber prison.
Never before had I seen so beautiful a creature. Her tomb, or casket, all of clear crystal, was tipped upward so that she appeared to be reclining there, gazing out upon the hall below her. I could see every outline of her figure, every lineament of her features. I recognized immediately the Egyptian strain in the firm, straight nose, the perfect curve of the somewhat full lips, and the exquisitely modeled chin, tender yet imperiously firm, but withal—shall I say it?—slightly cruel. Her figure, slightly swathed in a filmy lace of gold, was perfection—possibly a trifle fuller at the hips than we are wont to approve nowadays, but perfect nevertheless.
I have spoken of her contours as purely Egyptian; but here the comparison ceases, for your ancient Egyptian was of a swarthy race, but this woman of Atlantis was of the fairest, with wide-opened eyes as blue as the cornflowers in our native England, and high-piled hair as yellow as the golden fillets with which it was bound.
I can see my reader shudder at the thought of thus gazing upon the dead, but I can tell him the sight of the lovely Wynona thus affected neither Dr. Tyrrel nor myself. I do not know how long we stood there, gazing at this exquisite creature, but it must have been a very long while, for my heart began to labor and my head began to throb in a way which told me that the oxygen in the tanks at our backs must be getting low.
Almost at that identical moment I felt an uncanny tightening and drawing sensation about my legs and ankles. Glancing quickly downward, I saw something that left me cold with horror. That loathsome seaweed, unnoticed by us, had crept into the chapel and was now seemingly growing in all directions over the floor. Some of it had entwined about my ankles, producing upon them a peculiar drawing and tugging sensation similar to that felt by a person walking in the undertow on a wave-washed beach. A swift glance over to my colleague produced in me a second and greater wave of horror. I saw him there lost in contemplation of the sleeping beauty and utterly unmindful that this hideous creeping thing had gone farther on him than it had on me. Indeed, it bade fair to cover his whole body.
During the course of my twenty years' exploration of the world under the sea, I have had many occasions to be terrified by the activities of plant and animal life there, but never have I been so submerged in horror as when I beheld that slimy weed squirming and twisting over our bodies. I must have cried out with the shock of it, for my head began to ring within my
