swam to one end, where
there were tufts of water weeds, and a kind of natural ditch took off
the surplus water into a pool of similar size, a hundred yards away
among the trees--a black-looking, overhung place, suggestive of
reptiles, and depth, and dead tree-trunks with snaggy boughs ready to
remove a swimmer's skin, though possibly if the trees had all been
cleared away, and the bright sunshine had flooded it with light, it
might have looked attractive enough.

As it was, I should have thought it madness to venture into such a spot,
not knowing what danger might lurk therein, and I turned and swam back
toward the other end, but stopped in the middle opposite my clothes
lying on the fallen tree, and turned over to float and gaze up at the
blue sky and the glorious hues of green upon the trees which surrounded
the pool.

"I wonder where Pomp is," I said to myself, and then, satisfied that if
he saw Morgan he would learn where I had gone, and follow, I turned over
on my breast and began to swim lazily toward the end where the reeds
grew.

"I dare say all the fish have taken refuge in there," I said to myself.
"If one had a net to spread round, and then send Pomp in there with a
pole to beat and thrash about, one might get, a good haul."

I swam on, driven by I don't know what attraction toward the great patch
of reeds standing up out of the clear water, when all at once Morgan's
words concerning alligators came to my mind, and for a moment I
hesitated and ceased swimming, gazing straight before me at the large
patch of aquatic growth, and then at another, a dozen yards away to my
right.

"They'd only he little ones and scuttle off as hard as they could," I
thought directly, and continued swimming toward the great patch before
me, when, just as I was about a dozen feet from the thickest part, I
felt a chill of horror run through me, paralysing every nerve, and my
lips parted to utter a cry, for the reeds were suddenly agitated as by
the passage of something forcing its way out, and to my horror the
hideous open-mouthed snout of a great alligator was thrust forth, and
from its wide jaws there came a horrible bellowing roar which sounded to
me at the moment as if the monster had uttered the word _Houk_!

I could not for the moment stir nor utter a cry for help. Then as the
reeds were more roughly agitated, and I saw that the brute was
struggling out from the tangle of matted roots below the surface, I
threw myself