October 27, 2025 • 26 mins
Listen Ad Free https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Sea Raiders by H. G. Wells, Chapter one. Until
the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species Haploteuthis feroux
was known to science only generically on the strength of
a half digested tentacle obtained near the Azores and a
(00:21):
decaying body pecked by birds and nibbled by fish, found
early in eighteen ninety six by mister Jennings near Land's End.
In no department of zoological science. Indeed, are we quite
so much in the dark as with regard to the
deep sea cephalopods. A mere accident, for instance, it was
(00:42):
that led to the Prince of Monaco's discovery of nearly
a dozen new forms in the summer of eighteen ninety five,
a discovery in which the before mentioned tentacle was included.
A chance that a cachalot was killed off Tercyra by
some sperm whalers, and in its last struggles, charged almost
(01:02):
to the Prince's yacht, missed, it rolled under and died
within twenty yards of his rudder, And in its agony
it threw up a number of large objects, which the Prince,
dimly perceiving they were strange and important, was by a
happy expedient able to secure before they sank, He set
his screws in motion and kept them circling in the
(01:25):
vortices thus created until a boat could be lowered. And
these specimens were whole cephalopods and fragments of cephalopods, some
of gigantic proportions, and almost all of them unknown to science.
It would seem, indeed, that these large and agile creatures
living in the middle depths of the sea must, to
(01:47):
a large extent forever remain unknown to us, since underwater
they are too nimble for nets, and it is only
by such rare, unlooked for accidents that specimens can be obtained.
In the case of Haplotuophis ferox, for instance, we are
still altogether ignorant of its habitat, as ignorant as we
(02:08):
are of the breeding ground of the herring or the
sea ways of the salmon, and zoologists are altogether at
a loss to account for its sudden appearance on our coast.
Possibly it was the stress of a hunger migration that
drove it hither out of the deep, But it will
be perhaps better to avoid necessarily inconclusive discussion, and to
(02:30):
proceed at once with our narrative, the first human being
to set eyes upon a living haplotuophus the first human
being to survive. That is, for there can be little
doubt now that the wave of bathing fatalities and boating
accidents that traveled along the coast of Cornwall and Devon
(02:50):
in early May was due to this cause. Was a
retired tea dealer of the name of Phison, who was
stopping at a Sidmouth boarding house. It was in the afternoon,
and he was walking along the cliff path between Sidmouth
and Ladrum Bay. The cliffs in this direction are very high,
(03:10):
but down the red face of them, in one place
a kind of latter staircase had been made. He was
near this when his attention was attracted by what, at
first he thought to be a cluster of birds struggling
over a fragment of food that caught the sunlight and
glistened pinkish white. The tide was right out, and this
(03:31):
object was not only far below him, but remote across
a broad waste of rock reefs covered with dark seaweed
and interspersed with silvery shining tidal pools. And he was
moreover dazzled by the brightness of the further water in
a minute. Regarding this again, he perceived that his judgment
(03:52):
was in fault. For over this struggle circled a number
of birds, jackdaws and gauze, for the most part, the
latter gleaming blindingly when the sunlight smote their wings, and
they seemed minute in comparison with it. And his curiosity
was perhaps aroused all the more strongly because of his
first insufficient explanations. As he had nothing better to do
(04:16):
than amuse himself, he decided to make this object, whatever
it was, the goal of his afternoon walk instead of
Ladrum Bay, conceiving it might perhaps be a great fish
of some sort, stranded by some chance and flapping about
in its distress, And so he hurried down the long
steep ladder, stopping at in the valls of thirty feet
(04:38):
or so to take breath and scan the mysterious movement.
At the foot of the cliff. He was, of course
nearer his object than he had been, But on the
other hand, it now came up against the incandescent sky
beneath the sun, so as to seem dark and indistinct.
Whatever was pinkish of it was now hidden by a
(04:59):
scare of weedy boulders, but he perceived that it was
made up of seven rounded bodies, distinct or connected, and
that the birds kept up a constant croaking and screaming,
but seemed afraid to approach it too closely. Mister Fison,
torn by curiosity, began picking his way across the wave
worn rocks, and finding the wet seaweed that covered them
(05:23):
thickly rendered them extremely slippery. He stopped, removed his shoes
and socks, and coiled his trousers above his knees. His
object was, of course, merely to avoid stumbling into the
rocky pools about him, and perhaps he was rather glad,
as all men are, of an excuse to resume, even
for a moment, for sensations of his boyhood. At any rate,
(05:47):
it is to this no doubt that he owes his life.
He approached his mark with all the assurance which the
absolute security of this country against all forms of animal
life gives its inhabitants. The round bodies moved to and fro.
But it was only when he surmounted the scary of
boulders I have mentioned that he realized the horrible nature
(06:10):
of the discovery. It came upon him with some suddenness.
The rounded bodies fell apart as he came into sight
over the ridge, and displayed the pinkish object to be
the partially devoured body of a human being, But whether
of a man or woman, he was unable to say.
And the rounded bodies were new and ghastly looking creatures,
(06:34):
in shape somewhat resembling an octopus, and with huge and
very long and flexible tentacles coiled copiously on the ground.
The skin had a glistening texture, unpleasant to see, like
shiny leather. The downward bend of the tentacle surrounded mouth.
The curious excrescence at the bend the tentacles, and the large,
(06:58):
intelligent eyes gave the creatures the grotesque suggestion of a face.
They were the size of a fair sized swine about
the body, and the tentacles seemed to him to be
many feet in length. There were he thinks seven or
eight at least of the creatures. Twenty yards beyond them,
amid the surf of the now returning tide, two others
(07:21):
were emerging from the sea. Their bodies lay flatly on
the rocks, and their eyes regarded him with evil interest.
But it does not appear that mister Fison was afraid,
or that he realized that he was in any danger.
Possibly his confidence is to be ascribed to the limpness
of their attitudes. But he was horrified, of course, and
(07:45):
intensely excited and indignant at such revolting creatures preying upon
human flesh. He thought they had chanced upon a drowned body.
He shouted to them, with the idea of driving them off,
and finding they did not budge cast about him, picked
up a big rounded lump of rock and flung it
at one and then slowly uncoiling their tentacles. They all
(08:10):
began moving towards him, creeping at first deliberately, and making
a soft purring sound to each other. In a moment,
mister Feisan realized that he was in danger. He shouted again,
threw both his boots, and started off with a leap
Forthwith twenty yards off, he stopped and faced about, judging
(08:30):
them slow and behold, the tentacles of their leader were
already poring over the rocky ridge on which he had
just been standing. At that he shouted again, but this
time not threatening but a cry of dismay, and began jumping,
striding slipping wading across the uneven expanse between him and
(08:52):
the beach, The tall red cliff seemed suddenly at a
vast distance, and he saw as though they were creatures
in another world, two minute workmen engaged in the repair
of the larter way, and little suspecting the race for
life that was beginning below them. At one time he
could hear the creatures splashing in the pools not a
(09:15):
dozen feet behind him, and once he slipped and almost fell,
they chased him to the very foot of the cliffs,
and desisted only when he had been joined by the
workmen at the foot of the larraway up the cliff.
All three of the men pelted them with stones for
a time, and then hurried to the cliff top and
(09:36):
along the path towards Sidmouth to secure assistance and a boat,
and to rescue the desecrated body from the clutches of
these abominable creatures. Chapter two. And as if he had
not already been in sufficient peril that day, mister Fison
went with the boat to point out the exact spot
(09:58):
of his adventure. As the tide was down, it required
a considerable detour to reach the spot, and when At
last they came off the ladder way. The mangled body
had disappeared. The water was now running in submerging first
one slab of slimy rock and then another, and the
four men in the boat, the workmen, that is, the
(10:20):
boatman and mister Fison, now turned their attention from the
bearings off shore to the water beneath the keel. At
first they could see little below them save a dark
jungle of Lamon Area with an occasional darting fish. Their
minds were set on the adventure, and they expressed their
disappointment freely. But presently they saw one of the monsters
(10:45):
swimming through the water seaward with a curious rolling motion
that suggested to mister Fison the spinning roll of a
captive balloon. Almost immediately after, the waving streamers of Lamon
Area were extraordinarily perturbed, parting for a moment, and three
of these beasts became darkly visible, struggling for what was
(11:08):
probably some fragment of the drowned man. In a moment,
the copious olive green ribbons had poured again over this
writhing group. Yet that all four men, greatly excited, began
beating the water with oars and shouting, and immediately they
sought tumultuous movement among the weeds. They desisted to see
(11:29):
more clearly, and as soon as the water was smooth,
they saw, as it seemed to them, the whole sea
bottom among the weeds, set with eyes ugly swine, cried
one of the men, why there's dozens, and forthwith the
things began to rise through the water about them. Mister
(11:49):
Fison has since described to the writer this startling eruption
out of the waving Laminaria meadows. To him, it seemed
to occupy a considerable time, but it is probable that
really it was an affair of a few seconds. Only
for a time nothing but eyes. And then he speaks
of tentacles streaming out and parting the weed fronds this
(12:12):
way and that, and then these things growing larger, until
at last the bottom was hidden by their intercoiling forms,
and the tips of tentacles rose darkly here and there
into the air above the swell of the waters. One
came up boldly to the side of the boat, and,
clinging to this with three of its succors, set tentacles,
(12:34):
threw four others over the gunwale as if with an
intention either of upsetting the boat or of clambering into it.
Mister Fison at once caught up the boat hook, and
jabbing furiously at the soft tentacles, forced it to desist.
He was struck in the back and almost pitched overboard
by the boatman, who was using his oar to resist
(12:56):
a similar attack on the other side of the boat.
The tentacles on either side at once relaxed their hold
at this and slid out of sight and splashed into
the water. We'd better get out of this, said mister Fison,
who was trembling violently. He went to the tiller, while
the boatmen and one of the workmen seated themselves and
(13:18):
began rowing. The other workmen stood up in the fore
part of the boat with the boat hook, ready to
strike any more tentacles that might appear. Nothing else seems
to have been said. Mister Fison had expressed the common
feeling beyond amendment in a hushed, scared mood. With faces
white and drawn, they set about escaping from the position
(13:41):
into which they had so recklessly blundered. But the oars
had scarcely dropped into the water before dark tapering serpentine
ropes had bound them and were about the rudder and
creeping up the sides of the boat. With a looping motion,
came the suckers again. The men gripped their oars and hold,
but it was like trying to move a boat in
(14:02):
a floating raft of weeds. Help here, cried the boatman,
and mister Fison and the second workman rushed to help
lug at the oar. Then the man with the boat hook,
whose name was Ewen, sprang up with a curse and
began striking downward over the side as far as he
could reach, at the bank of tentacles that now clustered
(14:23):
along the boat's bottom. And at the same time the
two rowers stood up to get a better purchase for
the recovery of their oars. The boatman handed his to
mister Fison, who lugged desperately, and meanwhile the boatman opened
a big clasp knife, and leaning over the side of
the boat, began hacking at the spiring arms upon the
(14:43):
oar shaft. Mister Fison, staggering with the quivering rocking of
the boat, his teeth set, his breath coming short, and
the veins starting on his hands as he pulled at
his oar, suddenly cast his eyes seaward, and there, not
fifty yards off, across the long rollers of the incoming tide,
was a large boat standing in towards them, with three
(15:06):
women and a little child in it. A boatman was rowing,
and a little man in a pink ribbon straw hat
and whites stood in the stern hailing them. For a moment,
of course, mister Fison thought of help, and then he
thought of the child. He abandoned his oar forthwith, threw
up his arms in a frantic gesture, and screamed to
(15:26):
the party in the boat to keep away, for God's sake.
It says much for the modesty and courage of mister
Fison that he does not seem to be aware that
there was any quality of heroism in his action. At
this juncture. The oar he had abandoned was at once
drawn under and presently reappeared floating about twenty yards away.
(15:48):
At the same moment, mister Fison felt the boat under
him lurch violently, and a hoarse scream, a prolonged cry
of terror from Hill the boatman, caused him to forget
the party of excursionists altogether. He turned and saw Hill
crouching by the forward row lock, his face convulsed with terror,
and his right arm over the side and drawn tightly down.
(16:11):
He gave now a succession of short, sharp cries, oh, oh,
oh oh. Mister Phison believes that he must have been
hacking out the tentacles below the water line and have
been grasped by them, But of course it's quite impossible
to say now certainly what had happened. The boat was
heeling over so that the gunwale was within ten inches
(16:32):
of the water, and both Ewan and the other laborer
was striking down into the water with oar and boat
hook on either side of Hill's arm. Mister Fison instinctively
placed himself to counterpoise them. Then Hill, who was a burly,
powerful man, made a strenuous effort and rose almost to
(16:53):
a standing position. He lifted his arm, indeed clean out
of the water. Hanging to it was a complicate aid,
a tangle of brown ropes, and the eyes of one
of the brutes that had hold of him, glaring straight
and resolute, showed momentarily above the surface. The boat heeled
more and more, and the green, brown water came pouring
(17:14):
in a cascade over the side. Then Hill slipped and
fell with his ribs across the side, and his arm
and the mass of tentacles about it splashed back into
the water. He rolled over his boot hit mister Pison's
knee as that gentleman rushed forward to seize him, and
in another moment, fresh tentacles had whipped about his waist
(17:36):
and neck, and after a brief convulsive struggle in which
the boat was nearly capsized, Hill was lugged overboard. The
boat righted with a violent jerk that all but sent
mister Fison over the other side, and he hid the
struggle in the water from his eyes. He stood staggering
to recover his balance for a moment, and as he
(17:58):
did so, he became aware that the struggle and the
inflowing tide had carried them close upon the weedy rocks again,
not four yards off. A table of rock still rose
in rhythmic movements above the inwash of the tide. In
a moment, mister Phison seized the oar from Ewan, gave
one vigorous stroke, and then dropping it, ran to the
(18:20):
boughs and leaped. He felt his feet slide over the rock,
and by a frantic effort, leaped again towards a further mass.
He stumbled over this, came to his knees, and rose again.
Look out, cried some one, and a large, drab body
struck him. He was not flat into a tidal pool
(18:40):
by one of the workmen, and as he went down
he heard smothered, choking cries that he believed at the
time came from Hill, And then he found himself marveling
at the shrillness and variety of Hill's voice. Some one
jumped over him, and the curving rush of foamy water
poured over him and passed. He scrambled to his feet, dripping,
(19:03):
and without looking seaward, ran as fast as his terror
would let him shoreward. Before him, over the flat space
of scattered rocks, stumbled the two workmen, one a dozen
yards in front of the other. He looked over his
shoulder at last, and, seeing that he was not pursued,
faced about. He was astonished. From the moment of the
(19:26):
rising of the cephalopods out of the water, he had
been acting too swiftly to fully comprehend his actions, and
now it seemed to him as if he had suddenly
jumped out of an evil dream. For there were the sky,
cloudless and blazing with the afternoon sun, the sea weltering
(19:47):
under its pitiless brightness, the soft creamy foam of the
breaking water, and the low, long, dark ridges of rock.
The righted boat floated, rising and falling gently on the
sun well, about a dozen yards from shore Hill and
the monsters. All the stress and tumult of that fierce
fight for life had vanished, as though they had never been.
(20:12):
Mister Fison's heart was beating violently, He was throbbing to
the finger tips, and his breath came deep. There was
something missing. For some seconds, he could not think clearly
enough what this might be? Sun, sky, sea, rocks. What
was it? And then he remembered the boat load of excursionists.
(20:33):
It had vanished. He wondered whether he had imagined it.
He turned and saw the two workmen standing side by
side under the projecting masses of the tall pink cliffs.
He hesitated whether he should make one last attempt to
save the man Hill. His physical excitement seemed to desert
(20:54):
him suddenly and leave him aimless and helpless. He turned shoreward,
stumbling and wading towards his two companions. He looked back again,
and there were now two boats floating, and the one
farthest out at sea pitched clumsily bottom upward. Chapter three.
(21:17):
So it was haplotuphus Ferox made its appearance upon the
Devonshire coast. So far this has been its most serious aggression.
Mister Phison's account, taken together with a wave of boating
and bathing casualties to which I have already alluded, and
the absence of fish from the Cornish coasts that year,
(21:37):
points clearly to a shoal of these voracious deep sea
monsters prowling slowly along the subtidal coast line. Hunger migration
has I know, been suggested as the force that drove
them hither, But for my own part, I prefer to
believe the alternative theory of Hemsley. Elmsley holds at a
(21:58):
pack or shoal of these creatures may have become enamored
of human flesh by the accident of a foundered ship
sinking among them, and have wandered in search of it
out of their customed zone, first wailing and following ships,
and so coming to our shores in the wake of
the Atlantic traffic. But to discuss Hemsley's cogent and admirably
(22:22):
stated arguments would be out of place here. It would
seem that the appetites of the shoal were satisfied by
the catch of eleven people. For so far as can
be ascertained, there were ten people in the second boat,
and certainly these creatures gave no further signs of their
presence of Sidmouth that day. The coast between Seaton and
(22:43):
but Lay Salterton was patrolled all that evening and night
by four preventive service boats, the men in which were
armed with harpoons and cutlasses, and as the evening advanced,
a number of more or less similarly equipped expeditions organized
by private individuals joined them. Mister Fison took no part
(23:04):
in any of these expeditions. About midnight, excited hails were
heard from a boat about a couple of miles out
at sea to the southeast of Sidmouth, and a lantern
was seen waving in a strange manner to and fro
and up and down. The nearer boats at once hurried
towards the alarm. The venturesome occupants of the boat, a seaman,
(23:28):
a curate and two schoolboys, had actually seen the monsters
passing under their boat. The creatures, it seems like most
deep sea organisms, were phosphorescent, and they had been floating
five fathoms deep or so, like creatures of moonshine through
the blackness of the water. Their tentacles retracted, and, as
(23:49):
if asleep, rolling over and over and moving slowly in
a wedge like formation towards the southeast. These people told
their story in gesticulated fragments, as first one boat drew alongside,
and then another. At last there was a little fleet
of eight or nine boats collected together, and from them
(24:11):
a tumult like the chatter of a market place, rose
into the stillness of the night. There was little or
no disposition to pursue the shoal. The people had neither
weapons nor experience for such a dubious chase, and presently,
even with a certain relief, it may be, the boats
(24:31):
turned shoreward. And now, to tell what is perhaps the
most astonishing fact in this whole astonishing reed, we have
not the slightest knowledge of the subsequent movements of the shore,
although the whole southwest coast was now alert for it.
But it may perhaps be significant that a casual lot
was stranded off sark On June third, two weeks and
(24:55):
three days after this Sidmouth affair, a living Haplotophus came
ashore on Calais Sands. It was alive because several witnesses
saw its tentacles moving in a convulsive way, but it
is probable that it was dying. A gentleman named Pouchet
obtained a rifle and shot it. That was the last
(25:17):
appearance of a living Haplotuphus. No others were seen on
the French coast. On the fifteenth of June, a dead body,
almost complete, was washed ashore near Torquay, and a few
days later a boat from the Marine Biological Station, engaged
in dredging off Plymouth, picked up a rotting specimen slashed
(25:39):
deeply with a cutlass wound. How the former specimen had
come by its death it is impossible to say. And
on the last day of June, mister Egbert Caine, an
artist bathing near Newlyn, threw up his arms, shrieked, and
was drawn under. A friend bathing with him made no
attempt to save him, but swam at once for the shore.
(26:04):
This is the last fact to tell of this extraordinary
raid from the deeper Sea. Whether it is really the
last of these horrible creatures, it is as yet premature
to say, but it is believed, and certainly it is
to be hoped, that they have returned now, and returned
for good, to the sunless depths of the Middle Seas,
(26:27):
out of which they have so strange lay and so
mysteriously arisen. End of the Sea Raiders by H. G.
Wells
The Sea Raiders by H. G. Wells, Chapter one. Until
the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species Haploteuthis feroux
was known to science only generically on the strength of
a half digested tentacle obtained near the Azores and a
(00:21):
decaying body pecked by birds and nibbled by fish, found
early in eighteen ninety six by mister Jennings near Land's End.
In no department of zoological science. Indeed, are we quite
so much in the dark as with regard to the
deep sea cephalopods. A mere accident, for instance, it was
(00:42):
that led to the Prince of Monaco's discovery of nearly
a dozen new forms in the summer of eighteen ninety five,
a discovery in which the before mentioned tentacle was included.
A chance that a cachalot was killed off Tercyra by
some sperm whalers, and in its last struggles, charged almost
(01:02):
to the Prince's yacht, missed, it rolled under and died
within twenty yards of his rudder, And in its agony
it threw up a number of large objects, which the Prince,
dimly perceiving they were strange and important, was by a
happy expedient able to secure before they sank, He set
his screws in motion and kept them circling in the
(01:25):
vortices thus created until a boat could be lowered. And
these specimens were whole cephalopods and fragments of cephalopods, some
of gigantic proportions, and almost all of them unknown to science.
It would seem, indeed, that these large and agile creatures
living in the middle depths of the sea must, to
(01:47):
a large extent forever remain unknown to us, since underwater
they are too nimble for nets, and it is only
by such rare, unlooked for accidents that specimens can be obtained.
In the case of Haplotuophis ferox, for instance, we are
still altogether ignorant of its habitat, as ignorant as we
(02:08):
are of the breeding ground of the herring or the
sea ways of the salmon, and zoologists are altogether at
a loss to account for its sudden appearance on our coast.
Possibly it was the stress of a hunger migration that
drove it hither out of the deep, But it will
be perhaps better to avoid necessarily inconclusive discussion, and to
(02:30):
proceed at once with our narrative, the first human being
to set eyes upon a living haplotuophus the first human
being to survive. That is, for there can be little
doubt now that the wave of bathing fatalities and boating
accidents that traveled along the coast of Cornwall and Devon
(02:50):
in early May was due to this cause. Was a
retired tea dealer of the name of Phison, who was
stopping at a Sidmouth boarding house. It was in the afternoon,
and he was walking along the cliff path between Sidmouth
and Ladrum Bay. The cliffs in this direction are very high,
(03:10):
but down the red face of them, in one place
a kind of latter staircase had been made. He was
near this when his attention was attracted by what, at
first he thought to be a cluster of birds struggling
over a fragment of food that caught the sunlight and
glistened pinkish white. The tide was right out, and this
(03:31):
object was not only far below him, but remote across
a broad waste of rock reefs covered with dark seaweed
and interspersed with silvery shining tidal pools. And he was
moreover dazzled by the brightness of the further water in
a minute. Regarding this again, he perceived that his judgment
(03:52):
was in fault. For over this struggle circled a number
of birds, jackdaws and gauze, for the most part, the
latter gleaming blindingly when the sunlight smote their wings, and
they seemed minute in comparison with it. And his curiosity
was perhaps aroused all the more strongly because of his
first insufficient explanations. As he had nothing better to do
(04:16):
than amuse himself, he decided to make this object, whatever
it was, the goal of his afternoon walk instead of
Ladrum Bay, conceiving it might perhaps be a great fish
of some sort, stranded by some chance and flapping about
in its distress, And so he hurried down the long
steep ladder, stopping at in the valls of thirty feet
(04:38):
or so to take breath and scan the mysterious movement.
At the foot of the cliff. He was, of course
nearer his object than he had been, But on the
other hand, it now came up against the incandescent sky
beneath the sun, so as to seem dark and indistinct.
Whatever was pinkish of it was now hidden by a
(04:59):
scare of weedy boulders, but he perceived that it was
made up of seven rounded bodies, distinct or connected, and
that the birds kept up a constant croaking and screaming,
but seemed afraid to approach it too closely. Mister Fison,
torn by curiosity, began picking his way across the wave
worn rocks, and finding the wet seaweed that covered them
(05:23):
thickly rendered them extremely slippery. He stopped, removed his shoes
and socks, and coiled his trousers above his knees. His
object was, of course, merely to avoid stumbling into the
rocky pools about him, and perhaps he was rather glad,
as all men are, of an excuse to resume, even
for a moment, for sensations of his boyhood. At any rate,
(05:47):
it is to this no doubt that he owes his life.
He approached his mark with all the assurance which the
absolute security of this country against all forms of animal
life gives its inhabitants. The round bodies moved to and fro.
But it was only when he surmounted the scary of
boulders I have mentioned that he realized the horrible nature
(06:10):
of the discovery. It came upon him with some suddenness.
The rounded bodies fell apart as he came into sight
over the ridge, and displayed the pinkish object to be
the partially devoured body of a human being, But whether
of a man or woman, he was unable to say.
And the rounded bodies were new and ghastly looking creatures,
(06:34):
in shape somewhat resembling an octopus, and with huge and
very long and flexible tentacles coiled copiously on the ground.
The skin had a glistening texture, unpleasant to see, like
shiny leather. The downward bend of the tentacle surrounded mouth.
The curious excrescence at the bend the tentacles, and the large,
(06:58):
intelligent eyes gave the creatures the grotesque suggestion of a face.
They were the size of a fair sized swine about
the body, and the tentacles seemed to him to be
many feet in length. There were he thinks seven or
eight at least of the creatures. Twenty yards beyond them,
amid the surf of the now returning tide, two others
(07:21):
were emerging from the sea. Their bodies lay flatly on
the rocks, and their eyes regarded him with evil interest.
But it does not appear that mister Fison was afraid,
or that he realized that he was in any danger.
Possibly his confidence is to be ascribed to the limpness
of their attitudes. But he was horrified, of course, and
(07:45):
intensely excited and indignant at such revolting creatures preying upon
human flesh. He thought they had chanced upon a drowned body.
He shouted to them, with the idea of driving them off,
and finding they did not budge cast about him, picked
up a big rounded lump of rock and flung it
at one and then slowly uncoiling their tentacles. They all
(08:10):
began moving towards him, creeping at first deliberately, and making
a soft purring sound to each other. In a moment,
mister Feisan realized that he was in danger. He shouted again,
threw both his boots, and started off with a leap
Forthwith twenty yards off, he stopped and faced about, judging
(08:30):
them slow and behold, the tentacles of their leader were
already poring over the rocky ridge on which he had
just been standing. At that he shouted again, but this
time not threatening but a cry of dismay, and began jumping,
striding slipping wading across the uneven expanse between him and
(08:52):
the beach, The tall red cliff seemed suddenly at a
vast distance, and he saw as though they were creatures
in another world, two minute workmen engaged in the repair
of the larter way, and little suspecting the race for
life that was beginning below them. At one time he
could hear the creatures splashing in the pools not a
(09:15):
dozen feet behind him, and once he slipped and almost fell,
they chased him to the very foot of the cliffs,
and desisted only when he had been joined by the
workmen at the foot of the larraway up the cliff.
All three of the men pelted them with stones for
a time, and then hurried to the cliff top and
(09:36):
along the path towards Sidmouth to secure assistance and a boat,
and to rescue the desecrated body from the clutches of
these abominable creatures. Chapter two. And as if he had
not already been in sufficient peril that day, mister Fison
went with the boat to point out the exact spot
(09:58):
of his adventure. As the tide was down, it required
a considerable detour to reach the spot, and when At
last they came off the ladder way. The mangled body
had disappeared. The water was now running in submerging first
one slab of slimy rock and then another, and the
four men in the boat, the workmen, that is, the
(10:20):
boatman and mister Fison, now turned their attention from the
bearings off shore to the water beneath the keel. At
first they could see little below them save a dark
jungle of Lamon Area with an occasional darting fish. Their
minds were set on the adventure, and they expressed their
disappointment freely. But presently they saw one of the monsters
(10:45):
swimming through the water seaward with a curious rolling motion
that suggested to mister Fison the spinning roll of a
captive balloon. Almost immediately after, the waving streamers of Lamon
Area were extraordinarily perturbed, parting for a moment, and three
of these beasts became darkly visible, struggling for what was
(11:08):
probably some fragment of the drowned man. In a moment,
the copious olive green ribbons had poured again over this
writhing group. Yet that all four men, greatly excited, began
beating the water with oars and shouting, and immediately they
sought tumultuous movement among the weeds. They desisted to see
(11:29):
more clearly, and as soon as the water was smooth,
they saw, as it seemed to them, the whole sea
bottom among the weeds, set with eyes ugly swine, cried
one of the men, why there's dozens, and forthwith the
things began to rise through the water about them. Mister
(11:49):
Fison has since described to the writer this startling eruption
out of the waving Laminaria meadows. To him, it seemed
to occupy a considerable time, but it is probable that
really it was an affair of a few seconds. Only
for a time nothing but eyes. And then he speaks
of tentacles streaming out and parting the weed fronds this
(12:12):
way and that, and then these things growing larger, until
at last the bottom was hidden by their intercoiling forms,
and the tips of tentacles rose darkly here and there
into the air above the swell of the waters. One
came up boldly to the side of the boat, and,
clinging to this with three of its succors, set tentacles,
(12:34):
threw four others over the gunwale as if with an
intention either of upsetting the boat or of clambering into it.
Mister Fison at once caught up the boat hook, and
jabbing furiously at the soft tentacles, forced it to desist.
He was struck in the back and almost pitched overboard
by the boatman, who was using his oar to resist
(12:56):
a similar attack on the other side of the boat.
The tentacles on either side at once relaxed their hold
at this and slid out of sight and splashed into
the water. We'd better get out of this, said mister Fison,
who was trembling violently. He went to the tiller, while
the boatmen and one of the workmen seated themselves and
(13:18):
began rowing. The other workmen stood up in the fore
part of the boat with the boat hook, ready to
strike any more tentacles that might appear. Nothing else seems
to have been said. Mister Fison had expressed the common
feeling beyond amendment in a hushed, scared mood. With faces
white and drawn, they set about escaping from the position
(13:41):
into which they had so recklessly blundered. But the oars
had scarcely dropped into the water before dark tapering serpentine
ropes had bound them and were about the rudder and
creeping up the sides of the boat. With a looping motion,
came the suckers again. The men gripped their oars and hold,
but it was like trying to move a boat in
(14:02):
a floating raft of weeds. Help here, cried the boatman,
and mister Fison and the second workman rushed to help
lug at the oar. Then the man with the boat hook,
whose name was Ewen, sprang up with a curse and
began striking downward over the side as far as he
could reach, at the bank of tentacles that now clustered
(14:23):
along the boat's bottom. And at the same time the
two rowers stood up to get a better purchase for
the recovery of their oars. The boatman handed his to
mister Fison, who lugged desperately, and meanwhile the boatman opened
a big clasp knife, and leaning over the side of
the boat, began hacking at the spiring arms upon the
(14:43):
oar shaft. Mister Fison, staggering with the quivering rocking of
the boat, his teeth set, his breath coming short, and
the veins starting on his hands as he pulled at
his oar, suddenly cast his eyes seaward, and there, not
fifty yards off, across the long rollers of the incoming tide,
was a large boat standing in towards them, with three
(15:06):
women and a little child in it. A boatman was rowing,
and a little man in a pink ribbon straw hat
and whites stood in the stern hailing them. For a moment,
of course, mister Fison thought of help, and then he
thought of the child. He abandoned his oar forthwith, threw
up his arms in a frantic gesture, and screamed to
(15:26):
the party in the boat to keep away, for God's sake.
It says much for the modesty and courage of mister
Fison that he does not seem to be aware that
there was any quality of heroism in his action. At
this juncture. The oar he had abandoned was at once
drawn under and presently reappeared floating about twenty yards away.
(15:48):
At the same moment, mister Fison felt the boat under
him lurch violently, and a hoarse scream, a prolonged cry
of terror from Hill the boatman, caused him to forget
the party of excursionists altogether. He turned and saw Hill
crouching by the forward row lock, his face convulsed with terror,
and his right arm over the side and drawn tightly down.
(16:11):
He gave now a succession of short, sharp cries, oh, oh,
oh oh. Mister Phison believes that he must have been
hacking out the tentacles below the water line and have
been grasped by them, But of course it's quite impossible
to say now certainly what had happened. The boat was
heeling over so that the gunwale was within ten inches
(16:32):
of the water, and both Ewan and the other laborer
was striking down into the water with oar and boat
hook on either side of Hill's arm. Mister Fison instinctively
placed himself to counterpoise them. Then Hill, who was a burly,
powerful man, made a strenuous effort and rose almost to
(16:53):
a standing position. He lifted his arm, indeed clean out
of the water. Hanging to it was a complicate aid,
a tangle of brown ropes, and the eyes of one
of the brutes that had hold of him, glaring straight
and resolute, showed momentarily above the surface. The boat heeled
more and more, and the green, brown water came pouring
(17:14):
in a cascade over the side. Then Hill slipped and
fell with his ribs across the side, and his arm
and the mass of tentacles about it splashed back into
the water. He rolled over his boot hit mister Pison's
knee as that gentleman rushed forward to seize him, and
in another moment, fresh tentacles had whipped about his waist
(17:36):
and neck, and after a brief convulsive struggle in which
the boat was nearly capsized, Hill was lugged overboard. The
boat righted with a violent jerk that all but sent
mister Fison over the other side, and he hid the
struggle in the water from his eyes. He stood staggering
to recover his balance for a moment, and as he
(17:58):
did so, he became aware that the struggle and the
inflowing tide had carried them close upon the weedy rocks again,
not four yards off. A table of rock still rose
in rhythmic movements above the inwash of the tide. In
a moment, mister Phison seized the oar from Ewan, gave
one vigorous stroke, and then dropping it, ran to the
(18:20):
boughs and leaped. He felt his feet slide over the rock,
and by a frantic effort, leaped again towards a further mass.
He stumbled over this, came to his knees, and rose again.
Look out, cried some one, and a large, drab body
struck him. He was not flat into a tidal pool
(18:40):
by one of the workmen, and as he went down
he heard smothered, choking cries that he believed at the
time came from Hill, And then he found himself marveling
at the shrillness and variety of Hill's voice. Some one
jumped over him, and the curving rush of foamy water
poured over him and passed. He scrambled to his feet, dripping,
(19:03):
and without looking seaward, ran as fast as his terror
would let him shoreward. Before him, over the flat space
of scattered rocks, stumbled the two workmen, one a dozen
yards in front of the other. He looked over his
shoulder at last, and, seeing that he was not pursued,
faced about. He was astonished. From the moment of the
(19:26):
rising of the cephalopods out of the water, he had
been acting too swiftly to fully comprehend his actions, and
now it seemed to him as if he had suddenly
jumped out of an evil dream. For there were the sky,
cloudless and blazing with the afternoon sun, the sea weltering
(19:47):
under its pitiless brightness, the soft creamy foam of the
breaking water, and the low, long, dark ridges of rock.
The righted boat floated, rising and falling gently on the
sun well, about a dozen yards from shore Hill and
the monsters. All the stress and tumult of that fierce
fight for life had vanished, as though they had never been.
(20:12):
Mister Fison's heart was beating violently, He was throbbing to
the finger tips, and his breath came deep. There was
something missing. For some seconds, he could not think clearly
enough what this might be? Sun, sky, sea, rocks. What
was it? And then he remembered the boat load of excursionists.
(20:33):
It had vanished. He wondered whether he had imagined it.
He turned and saw the two workmen standing side by
side under the projecting masses of the tall pink cliffs.
He hesitated whether he should make one last attempt to
save the man Hill. His physical excitement seemed to desert
(20:54):
him suddenly and leave him aimless and helpless. He turned shoreward,
stumbling and wading towards his two companions. He looked back again,
and there were now two boats floating, and the one
farthest out at sea pitched clumsily bottom upward. Chapter three.
(21:17):
So it was haplotuphus Ferox made its appearance upon the
Devonshire coast. So far this has been its most serious aggression.
Mister Phison's account, taken together with a wave of boating
and bathing casualties to which I have already alluded, and
the absence of fish from the Cornish coasts that year,
(21:37):
points clearly to a shoal of these voracious deep sea
monsters prowling slowly along the subtidal coast line. Hunger migration
has I know, been suggested as the force that drove
them hither, But for my own part, I prefer to
believe the alternative theory of Hemsley. Elmsley holds at a
(21:58):
pack or shoal of these creatures may have become enamored
of human flesh by the accident of a foundered ship
sinking among them, and have wandered in search of it
out of their customed zone, first wailing and following ships,
and so coming to our shores in the wake of
the Atlantic traffic. But to discuss Hemsley's cogent and admirably
(22:22):
stated arguments would be out of place here. It would
seem that the appetites of the shoal were satisfied by
the catch of eleven people. For so far as can
be ascertained, there were ten people in the second boat,
and certainly these creatures gave no further signs of their
presence of Sidmouth that day. The coast between Seaton and
(22:43):
but Lay Salterton was patrolled all that evening and night
by four preventive service boats, the men in which were
armed with harpoons and cutlasses, and as the evening advanced,
a number of more or less similarly equipped expeditions organized
by private individuals joined them. Mister Fison took no part
(23:04):
in any of these expeditions. About midnight, excited hails were
heard from a boat about a couple of miles out
at sea to the southeast of Sidmouth, and a lantern
was seen waving in a strange manner to and fro
and up and down. The nearer boats at once hurried
towards the alarm. The venturesome occupants of the boat, a seaman,
(23:28):
a curate and two schoolboys, had actually seen the monsters
passing under their boat. The creatures, it seems like most
deep sea organisms, were phosphorescent, and they had been floating
five fathoms deep or so, like creatures of moonshine through
the blackness of the water. Their tentacles retracted, and, as
(23:49):
if asleep, rolling over and over and moving slowly in
a wedge like formation towards the southeast. These people told
their story in gesticulated fragments, as first one boat drew alongside,
and then another. At last there was a little fleet
of eight or nine boats collected together, and from them
(24:11):
a tumult like the chatter of a market place, rose
into the stillness of the night. There was little or
no disposition to pursue the shoal. The people had neither
weapons nor experience for such a dubious chase, and presently,
even with a certain relief, it may be, the boats
(24:31):
turned shoreward. And now, to tell what is perhaps the
most astonishing fact in this whole astonishing reed, we have
not the slightest knowledge of the subsequent movements of the shore,
although the whole southwest coast was now alert for it.
But it may perhaps be significant that a casual lot
was stranded off sark On June third, two weeks and
(24:55):
three days after this Sidmouth affair, a living Haplotophus came
ashore on Calais Sands. It was alive because several witnesses
saw its tentacles moving in a convulsive way, but it
is probable that it was dying. A gentleman named Pouchet
obtained a rifle and shot it. That was the last
(25:17):
appearance of a living Haplotuphus. No others were seen on
the French coast. On the fifteenth of June, a dead body,
almost complete, was washed ashore near Torquay, and a few
days later a boat from the Marine Biological Station, engaged
in dredging off Plymouth, picked up a rotting specimen slashed
(25:39):
deeply with a cutlass wound. How the former specimen had
come by its death it is impossible to say. And
on the last day of June, mister Egbert Caine, an
artist bathing near Newlyn, threw up his arms, shrieked, and
was drawn under. A friend bathing with him made no
attempt to save him, but swam at once for the shore.
(26:04):
This is the last fact to tell of this extraordinary
raid from the deeper Sea. Whether it is really the
last of these horrible creatures, it is as yet premature
to say, but it is believed, and certainly it is
to be hoped, that they have returned now, and returned
for good, to the sunless depths of the Middle Seas,
(26:27):
out of which they have so strange lay and so
mysteriously arisen. End of the Sea Raiders by H. G.
Wells
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com