Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ The heavy grating was again placed in the aperture overlooking the sea and the black reef, and the evening meal was cooked and eaten.
Peter Griffon retired early, but he did not sleep. For a long time he lay still, hearing nothing but the snores and snorts of his slumbering companions. Then he left his couch and moved noiselessly about the caves. He became aware of a faint pulsing sound, light on the ear, but large on the mind like the running and pounding of surf greatly muffled ”

“ These monsters against whom the seaward entrance to the cave was so strongly barred every night were giant crabs. He had heard gruesome tales of certain reefs and keys of the Tortugas to the north, to which just such beasts as these swarmed up every night from black depths, whereon bones of men who had been cast ashore alive and dead lay white as new coral. ”

“ He caught another, which was gone as swiftly as the first. Then he realized that things—the devil only knew what manner of things!—filled the seaward vent of the cave, fighting and clawing at the grating of rusty iron. ”