he robe from her and with one swing of
their strong arms hurled her backwards far into the pool of seething
waters.

She fell with a shriek and lay floating on their surface, flung this way
and that by the eddy of the whirlpool just where the moonlight beat most
brightly. All who could of the multitude bent forward to see her end,
and overcome by a fearful fascination, Leonard threw himself on his
face, and, craning his head over the stone of the idol's hand, watched
also, for the girl's struggling shape was almost immediately beneath
him. Another minute and he would have foregone the hope of winning the
treasure which he had come so far to seek, not to have yielded to the
impulse.

For as he stared, the waters beneath the feet of the idol were agitated
as a pond is agitated by the rush of a pike when he dashes at his prey.
Then for an instant the light gleamed upon a dull enormous shape, and
suddenly the head of a crocodile reared itself out of the pool. The head
of a crocodile, but of such a crocodile as he had never heard or dreamed
of, for this head alone was broader than the breast of the biggest man,
its dull eyes were the size of a man's fist, its yellow fangs were like
the teeth of a lion, and from its lower jaw hung tentacles or lumps
of white flesh which at that distance gave it the appearance of being
bearded like a goat. Also, the skin of this huge reptile, which could
not have measured less than fifty feet in length by four feet in depth,
was here and there corroded into rusty excrescences, as though some
fungus or lichen had grown upon it like grey moss on an ancient wall.
Indeed, its appearance seemed to point to extreme antiquity.[*]

[*] Crocodiles are proverbially long-lived, but Leonard could never
discover the age of this particular reptile. On enquiry he was able to
trace it back for three hundred yards, and tradition said that it had
always dwelt among the People of the Mist from "the beginning of time."
At least it was very old, and under the name of the Snake had been an
object of worship for many generations. How it came among the People of
the Mist is difficult to say, for no other specimen appeared to exist in
the country. Perhaps it was captured in some distant age and placed in
the cave by the priests, to figure as an incarnation of the Snake that
was the object of their worship.

Hearing the disturbance in the water, the reptile had emerged from the
cave where it dwelt beneath the feet