“Row!” his father shouted.

“To the oars!” shouted someone in the other boat.

“Whose squid are they, Dad?”

“Ours!”

“What, even before we've caught them?”

“Just you shut up and row!”

“I can't move the boat, Dad, we're stuck on something!”

“It's a hundred fathoms deep here, boy! What's there to stick on?”

Les tried to disentangle an oar from the thing rising slowly out of the fizzing sea.

“Looks like a… a chicken, Dad!”

There was a sound from below the surface. It sounded like some bell or gong, slowly swinging.

“Chickens can't swim!”

“It's made of iron, Dad!”

Solid scrambled to the rear of the boat.

It was a chicken, made of iron. Seaweed and shells covered it and water dripped off it as it rose against the stars.

It stood on a cross-shaped perch.

There seemed to be a letter on each of the four ends of the cross.

Solid held the torch closer.

“What the—”

Then he pulled the oar free and sat down beside his son.

“Row like the blazes, Les!”

“What's happening, Dad?”

“Shut up and row! Get us away from it!”

“Is it a monster, Dad?”

“It's worse than a monster, son!” shouted Solid, as the oars bit into the water.

The thing was quite high now, standing on some kind of tower…

“What is it, Dad! What is it?”

“It's a damned weathercock!”

There was not, on the whole, a lot of geological excitement. The sinking of continents is usually accompanied by volcanoes, earthquakes and armadas of little boats containing old men anxious to build pyramids and mystic stone circles in some new land where being the possessor of genuine ancient occult wisdom might be expected to attract girls. But the rising of this one caused barely a ripple in the purely physical scheme of things. It more or less sidled back, like a cat who's been away for a few days and knows you've been worrying.