mauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as it
drifted between my monoplane and the sun. On the upper curve of
its huge body there were three great projections which I can only
describe as enormous bubbles, and I was convinced as I looked at
them that they were charged with some extremely light gas which
served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied
air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with
the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible
escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to
pounce. Its method of progression--done so swiftly that it was not
easy to follow--was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in
front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the
writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that never for
two successive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change
made it more threatening and loathsome than the last.

"I knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its
hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were
turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid
hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it.
As I did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle
from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and
sinuous as a whip-lash across the front of my machine. There was
a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it
whisked itself into the air again, while the huge, flat body drew
itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a vol-pique, but
again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shorn off by the
propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath.
A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and
caught me round the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore