Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Where had everyone gone? There was no sign of mutiny or of a raid, shall we say, by pirates. How had the men left the ship—and why had they left, it, obviously in haste, in the middle of breakfast? We don’t know. There have been a lot of theories put forward, but for one reason or another _they can be discounted. If it were only the Mary Celeste we might let the matter go, just write it off. But there are all those other ships, not only those that drop out of sight, without trace, but those that are found, abandoned for no earthly reason. New cases still turn up too, once every decade or so— and there you are. - | “T think I’m a hard-headed man. I’ve had lot of experience one way and the other. I don’t take much stock in ghosts and I believe everything has a rea- sonable explanation if we could locate what it is. And yet sometimes—well, I don’t know. The sea is pretty big and we haven’t learned much about it and what’s in it. Remember the land only covers one-fifth, or is it a quarter, of the earth’s surface—and we haven't fully explored the land yet. As for the sea, we have only gone down a few hundred feet—a few hundred feet in five miles of depth, remember. Ships stick to narrow and clearly defined lanes as a rule. There are tremendous areas where I suppose vessels only wander once in fifty years, or perhaps never go into at all and never have been. | “Is it something in the sea that comes out and loots these abandoned ships of their men? I know and you know that there are queer things in the sea. There’re the giant squids on which the sperm whales feed; I’ve heard they sometimes are a hundred feet from the tip of one arm to the other. Then there’s the sea-serpent. Yes, I know landsmen laugh at us for believing in that. But why shouldn’t we believe in it? It’s been known from ancient times. It’s been seen more than once, even if we acknowledge that a length of kelp, a barnacle-covered log or a school of porpoises in line might often have been mistaken for it. But how can you argue away the report of the Daedalus? 2 “Here is a British warship, certainly in command of a reliable man, cer- tainly officered by some few gentlemen whose integrity cannot be questioned. They sight a long snakelike animal, observe it for some time and are even able to sketch it. The scientists and public may laugh, but you can't argue away the testimony of a whole ship’s crew. Nor is it only the crew of the Daedalus you have to figure on. Captain Hope of another British war vessel, the Fly, saw a large animal with the body of a crocodile, a long neck and four paddlelike arms, in the Gulf of California. A Lieutenant Hayne, in com- mand of the yacht Osborne, sighted something as queer, but I forget where. There are two other men who filed a joint report also, and they were mem- bers of the Zodlogical Society cruising in a yacht off the coast of Brazil. They saw acreature with a neck seven or eight feet long alone and as thick around as a man’s body. I say you can’t laugh away all this, and you can read the full accounts yourself if you doubt me. I’ve gone into the matter pretty thoroughly because—well, you'll understand in a minute. 3 “T don’t say, mind, that any sort of animal such as the giant squid or the sea-serpent can account for these mysterious and deserted ships, nor for the 106 : COMIC DOCKSEO Hie