g mightily, listened to the roaring within the depths of the
mine.

Now the ground seemed to drop away before them. Maget could hear the
running of water, the underground river, and every now and then there
came an immense splash, as if some great whale had thrown itself about
in the water.

A terrifically loud hissing filled their ears, and suddenly, before
them, showed an utterly white snake with a head as big as a barrel.
Its white eyes glared sightlessly, but its tongue stuck forth for
several feet.

Kenneth Gurlone coolly tossed a lighted bomb at the creature: the
explosion shattered their ear-drums, but it also smashed the serpent.

* * * * *

The writhing, wriggling coils, bigger than the body of a horse,
slashed about, dangerously near. They picked themselves up, and pushed
on, keeping close to the right wall.

A great bat smashed against Maget, and knocked the light out of his
hand, but the blow was a glancing one, and he was able to retrieve his
light and hurry on.

They were far from the entrance now. The hole which had been broken
through by the peons showed before them, and they could see milky
water dashing over black rocks.

Pallid eyes looked at them, and they knew they gazed upon another of
the giant frogs. They tossed a bomb at the creature, and blew a jagged
hole in his back. No sooner had he begun to die than there came a
sudden rush of other monsters and a feast began.

"Throw, all together," yelled Kenneth Gurlone.

Into the vast mass of creatures, who crowded one another in the river
for their share of the spoils, they threw bomb after bomb. The
dynamite deafened them, and acrid fumes choked them, but they fired
their rifles at the prodigious animals and there, in the big river
cavern, was a seething mass of horrible life, dying in agony.

The bellowings and hissings sounded louder, so loud that the earth
shook as if actuated by a mighty earthquake.

Maget gripped Kenneth Gurlone's arm. "My bombs are gone," he shouted.

He had but a few rounds of ammunition left, and still more of the
giant reptiles appeared. A centipede with its creeping, horrible legs
topped the mass of squirming matter; they could see the terrific sting
of the creature, so deadly when but a fraction of an inch long, and
which was now at least a foot, armed with poison.

There came the rush of more bats and moths, a rush that threw the
three men off their feet.

"We must have op