SOURCE: "Demons of the Sea" (Sea Stories, October 5, 1923) by William Hope Hodgson

DESCRIPTION: "And well they might show signs of fear, for crawling about the bark's deck were the most horrible creatures I had ever seen. In spite of their unearthly strangeness there was something vaguely familiar about them. Then it came to me that the face that Stevenson and I had seen during he night belonged to one of them. Their bodies had something of the shape of a seal's, but of a dead, unhealthy white. The lower part of the body ended in a sort of double-curved tail on which they appeared to be able to shuffle about. In place of arms, they had two long, snaky feelers, at the ends of which were two very humanlike hands, which were equipped with talons instead of nails. Fearsome indeed were these parodies of human beings! Their faces, which, like their tentacles, were black, were the most grotesquely human things about them, and the upper jaw closed into the lower, after the manner of the jaws of an octopus. I have seen men among certain tribes of natives who had faces uncommonly like theirs, but yet no native I had ever seen could have given me the extraordinary feeling of horror and revulsion I experienced toward these brutal-looking creatures." ("Demons of the Sea" by William Hope Hodgson)

NOTES: The Demons of the Sea are pack creatures traveling the ocean, looking for prey. They can travel very quickly in the water and can over-take ships that are not sailing at full sails. These creatures communicate with a weird braying sound. "...At this time I noticed a strange booming note mingled with the brays. And once or twice there came a sound that can only be described as a sort of 'gug, gug.' Then would come a wheezy whistling, for all the world like an asthmatic person breathing." The Demons can board ships and even sail them though after they attack and kill the crew. Revolvers are fired at the chasing demons but without any obvious effect. Only a chance wind saves the narrator's ship as the sails fill, pulling them away. A gun boat is later dispatched to find and destroy the ship with the demons but it is never found.

HISTORY: The plot of this story is very similar to that of "The Thing in the Weeds". The creatures are fun because they are unique to Hodgson and not just an animal like a squid. This story appeared in a slightly different form as "The Storm" (Short Stories Magazine, December 1919).