To many who read my account of our amazing adventure on the island ofthe Gland Men, it will serve as just another illustration of howdevious is the path of science. It will illustrate also how, from thedarkness that girds it round, terrible possibilities loom black andmenacing, terrifying those daring enough to wander from the beatentrack.Another, and I fear greater, section of my readers may harbour no suchsentiments, labelling the whole as a tissue of preposterous lies, butto those who condemn me, I say this. Take the facts--meagre, garbled--as they appeared in the newspapers and attempt to account for them inany other way. There is only one answer. It is impossible.The intimate details were far too terrifying and astounding to permitof the facts being published verbatim, and it was mainly due to thenewspaper's reticence that something bordering on a world-wide panicwas averted.Doctor Bruce Clovelly, DD., F. R. C. S., will, of course, need nointroduction, for his recent surgical triumphs in glanding have madehis name almost a by-word, and it is with Guy Follansbee that we mustconcern ourselves. Follansbee, as I knew him in my days as laboratoryassistant to the doctor--one of those singularly fortunate individualswho know exactly what they want and how to get it without offending asingle soul--inclined to be cynical, yet straight as the proverbialstring. He had inherited from his father an insatiable desire foradventure and an income that ran into I forget how many figures. Beinga man of somewhat simple philosophy, he used the latter to appease theformer.It had taken our combined arguments, practised often and over longperiods, to make the doctor even consider such a thing as recreationand I had experienced the hardest task of my life in getting him fromhis chambers in Gower Street, to which he clung like Diogenes to hiswooden cavern. Even after his actual transplanting on to his opulentfriend's yacht, the Silver Lady, he took his enforced holiday like asmall boy takes his medicine, but as the illimitable miles ofsparkling water grew between our vessel and his stuffy chambers, heturned about to enjoy himself.We were midway between the Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands when thequeer affair began. The morning had been oppressively calm andFollansbee, the doctor and myself had taken the electric launch toexamine the rock fauna that flourished so prolifically hereabouts. Itwas characteristic of the doctor that he could, when required, produceinexhaustible stores of unexpected knowledge on the most out-of-the-way subjects; and though I had never before heard him mention marinegrowths, here he was expounding in his most didactic manner to hisslightly amused companion.Having little taste in such matters, I was reclining upon thecollapsible canvas chair, smoking a cigarette, and occasionallydipping my hand into the water, in order to convince myself that itwould not emerge dyed blue. Whether, rocked by the gentle motion ofthe boat, I fell into a semi-doze or whether the change swept down soquickly that its coming was unnoticed, I cannot say. But I rememberthat I suddenly jumped to my feet and called my companions' attentionto the unpleasant condition of the weather.In the east, the sun, flattened to a disc of unhealthy brown, wasgradually giving way to a dense bank of cloud that rushed down withthe rapidity of a drop curtain. The water had lost its turquoise hueand undulated in a long oily swell that was strangely suggestive ofhidden power underneath. Everywhere a heavy, pall-like silence hungover the face of Nature, fraught with an indescribable sensation ofimpending danger. Now and again there sounded, very faint and far-off,a curious humming sob, as of some gigantic beast in an agony oftorture.