ead with its wicked eyes on knobs; the
head with its vast, scaly, long snout, its raised nostrils at the tip,
its shuddering array of jagged teeth, its awful, armed, diabolical
aspect of conscious power--straight at the king's son. Without warning
had it come, and with still less had it attacked.

Swim, oh, swim, little king's son, for your very life! But the king's
son did not swim--at least, not in that sense. He turned. Yes, that
is right--turned; and the monstrosity of the armed snout, that same
being a crocodile, of course, was upon him even as he did so. There
would have been no time to turn after--no life! Still, the king's son
may not have known that. Maybe he turned, as a man attacked by a dog
does, because he felt, in a cold, nervy sort of spasm all up his spine,
the terrible defenselessness of his hind-limbs. And as he turned, he
struck--bat-bat!--struck with all his talons unsheathed; struck with
every ounce and grain of power, and force of brain to back that power,
in his system; struck as only a cornered cat can strike; struck like
a--lion.

The result was astounding.

The crocodile had aimed, true to a hair--you bet, he being a croc.--to
grab the king's son's hindlegs, and pull him under. He had not
reckoned on the turn, and the turn did it. His snout struck hindlegs,
which were not where they ought, by his calculations, to have been, but
were four or five inches away to one side.

Quick as only a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the
impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by.
You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh
and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may know how
many knots, in half-a-yard, you know; and it was the half-a-yard that
did the trick.

The king's son was aware, as he half-rose and delivered that desperate
blow, of a mighty bulk shooting by, of an overpowering, sickening
stench of musk, and of eyes, through the foam and the water--two
little, wicked, unspeakably cruel eyes on knobs.

_His chance_! And, quick as light, he took it. Ough!

The rest was chaos.

And that is about all, I think--unless you would like to know that
their mother, the king's consort, who had been working grimly along on
their trail since dusk, slid swiftly down the bank in that crisis, a
fiery-eyed, long, gliding shape, and plunging into the watery inferno
utterly recklessly, brought out, one by one, drippi