n exhausted with extreme and prolonged physical
exertion.

The eyes were gone.

A mad impulse rushed into my brain to dash forward and touch the
monster, to see if that dim, black form were really a thing of flesh
and blood or some contrivance of the devil. I smile at that phrase as
I write it now in my study, but I did not smile then. I was standing
above my knees in the water, trembling from head to foot, divided
between the impulse to go forward and the inclination to flee in terror.

I did neither; I stood still. I could see the thing with a fair amount
of distinctness and forced my brain to take the record of my eyes. But
I could make nothing of it.

I guessed at rather than saw a hideous head rolling from side to side
at the end of a long and sinuous neck, and writhing, reptilian coils
lashing the rock at the edge of the water, like the tentacles of an
octopus, only many times larger. The body itself was larger than that
of any animal I had ever seen, and blacker even than the darkness.

Suddenly the huge mass began to move slowly backward. The sharpness of
the odor had ceased with the opening of the eyes, which did not
reappear. I could dimly see its huge legs slowly rise and recede and
again meet the ground. Soon the thing was barely discernible.

I took a step forward as though to follow; but the strength of the
current warned me of the danger of proceeding farther, and, besides, I
feared every moment to see the lids again raised from the terrible
eyes. The thought attacked my brain with horror, and I turned and fled
in a sudden panic to the rear, calling to Harry and Desiree.

They met me at the edge of the stream, and their eyes told me that they
read in my face what had happened, though they had seen nothing.

"You--you saw it--" Harry stammered.

I nodded, scarcely able to speak.

"Then--perhaps now--"

"Yes," I interposed. "Let's get out of here. It's horrible. And yet
how can we go? I can hardly stand."

But Harry was now the one who argued for delay, saying that our retreat
was the safest place we could find, and that we should wait at least
until I had had time to recover from the strain of the last half-hour.
Realizing that in my weakened condition I would be a hindrance to them
rather than a help, I consented. Besides, if the thing reappeared I
could avoid it as Harry and Desiree had done.

"What is it?" Harry asked presently.

We were sitting side by side, well up again