{"product_id":"2940013758841","title":"The Gland Men of the Island","description":"To many who read my account of our amazing adventure on the island of\u003cbr\u003ethe Gland Men, it will serve as just another illustration of how\u003cbr\u003edevious is the path of science. It will illustrate also how, from the\u003cbr\u003edarkness that girds it round, terrible possibilities loom black and\u003cbr\u003emenacing, terrifying those daring enough to wander from the beaten\u003cbr\u003etrack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnother, and I fear greater, section of my readers may harbour no such\u003cbr\u003esentiments, labelling the whole as a tissue of preposterous lies, but\u003cbr\u003eto those who condemn me, I say this. Take the facts--meagre, garbled--\u003cbr\u003eas they appeared in the newspapers and attempt to account for them in\u003cbr\u003eany other way. There is only one answer. It is impossible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe intimate details were far too terrifying and astounding to permit\u003cbr\u003eof the facts being published verbatim, and it was mainly due to the\u003cbr\u003enewspaper's reticence that something bordering on a world-wide panic\u003cbr\u003ewas averted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoctor Bruce Clovelly, DD., F. R. C. S., will, of course, need no\u003cbr\u003eintroduction, for his recent surgical triumphs in glanding have made\u003cbr\u003ehis name almost a by-word, and it is with Guy Follansbee that we must\u003cbr\u003econcern ourselves. Follansbee, as I knew him in my days as laboratory\u003cbr\u003eassistant to the doctor--one of those singularly fortunate individuals\u003cbr\u003ewho know exactly what they want and how to get it without offending a\u003cbr\u003esingle soul--inclined to be cynical, yet straight as the proverbial\u003cbr\u003estring. He had inherited from his father an insatiable desire for\u003cbr\u003eadventure and an income that ran into I forget how many figures. Being\u003cbr\u003ea man of somewhat simple philosophy, he used the latter to appease the\u003cbr\u003eformer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had taken our combined arguments, practised often and over long\u003cbr\u003eperiods, to make the doctor even consider such a thing as recreation\u003cbr\u003eand I had experienced the hardest task of my life in getting him from\u003cbr\u003ehis chambers in Gower Street, to which he clung like Diogenes to his\u003cbr\u003ewooden cavern. Even after his actual transplanting on to his opulent\u003cbr\u003efriend's yacht, the Silver Lady, he took his enforced holiday like a\u003cbr\u003esmall boy takes his medicine, but as the illimitable miles of\u003cbr\u003esparkling water grew between our vessel and his stuffy chambers, he\u003cbr\u003eturned about to enjoy himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were midway between the Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands when the\u003cbr\u003equeer affair began. The morning had been oppressively calm and\u003cbr\u003eFollansbee, the doctor and myself had taken the electric launch to\u003cbr\u003eexamine the rock fauna that flourished so prolifically hereabouts. It\u003cbr\u003ewas characteristic of the doctor that he could, when required, produce\u003cbr\u003einexhaustible stores of unexpected knowledge on the most out-of-the-\u003cbr\u003eway subjects; and though I had never before heard him mention marine\u003cbr\u003egrowths, here he was expounding in his most didactic manner to his\u003cbr\u003eslightly amused companion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving little taste in such matters, I was reclining upon the\u003cbr\u003ecollapsible canvas chair, smoking a cigarette, and occasionally\u003cbr\u003edipping my hand into the water, in order to convince myself that it\u003cbr\u003ewould not emerge dyed blue. Whether, rocked by the gentle motion of\u003cbr\u003ethe boat, I fell into a semi-doze or whether the change swept down so\u003cbr\u003equickly that its coming was unnoticed, I cannot say. But I remember\u003cbr\u003ethat I suddenly jumped to my feet and called my companions' attention\u003cbr\u003eto the unpleasant condition of the weather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the east, the sun, flattened to a disc of unhealthy brown, was\u003cbr\u003egradually giving way to a dense bank of cloud that rushed down with\u003cbr\u003ethe rapidity of a drop curtain. The water had lost its turquoise hue\u003cbr\u003eand undulated in a long oily swell that was strangely suggestive of\u003cbr\u003ehidden power underneath. Everywhere a heavy, pall-like silence hung\u003cbr\u003eover the face of Nature, fraught with an indescribable sensation of\u003cbr\u003eimpending danger. Now and again there sounded, very faint and far-off,\u003cbr\u003ea curious humming sob, as of some gigantic beast in an agony of\u003cbr\u003etorture.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083168071920,"sku":"2940013758841","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013758841_p0.jpg?v=1763598626","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013758841","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}