immer. He looks a good
deal more like a reptile than a beast, anyhow."

Peter, the black cook, came running up at this juncture with the
Remington, and Earle, snatching it from him, quickly adjusted the back
sight and throwing himself prone upon the ground, took careful aim at
the formidable-looking brute, which had ceased to feed and was now
squatting on its haunches, facing toward the two men. A few seconds of
suspense and the rifle flashed, the hum of the bullet was heard, and
then a thud as it struck. Coincident with the thud of the bullet, the
great body sprang high into the air, a loud, blood-curdling scream
pealed out, and then, with a succession of prodigious leaps, it
disappeared among the rank herbage.

The result was a bitter disappointment for Earle, who declared that he
would not move from the spot until he had satisfied himself that it was
impossible to cross to the other side of the water. But, short of
swimming, there was no means of crossing, for there was nothing
wherewith to make a raft of even the most flimsy description. This fact
being at length conclusively established, the march was resumed
immediately after the conclusion of the mid-day meal.

About an hour before sunset that day, they were rather unexpectedly
brought to a halt by finding themselves on a small peninsula of some
five acres in extent, thrusting itself forward into a great lagoon, the
waters of which stretched away on either hand for many miles, while in
the direction toward which they wished to travel, the nearest point of
land was distant about a mile and a half. After surveying their
surroundings for some time, the two leaders agreed that it was too late
in the day to retrace their steps across the narrow isthmus by which
they had arrived and seek some other route; the camp was therefore
pitched on the south-westerly slope of the peninsula, quite close to a
little strip of sandy beach, with a background consisting of a hummock
some fifteen feet high crowned by an extensive clump of strange-looking
shrubs, the nature of which Earle was anxious to investigate.

The day had been overpoweringly hot, the sun blazing down upon them
unintermittently out of a cloudless sky; but now, while the camp was
being pitched, a thin haze began insidiously to overspread the blue,
while away toward the south-west a great bank of slatey blue cloud
appeared above the ridge of the distant hills, working up against the
wind and seeming to por