he depths below. The man saw it too, and the look of
terror that overspread his face assured me that I need have no further
concern as to him, for the fear of certain death was in his look.

And then about him coiled the great, slimy folds of a hideous monster
of that prehistoric deep--a mighty serpent of the sea, with fanged
jaws, and darting forked tongue, with bulging eyes, and bony
protuberances upon head and snout that formed short, stout horns.

As I looked at that hopeless struggle my eyes met those of the doomed
man, and I could have sworn that in his I saw an expression of hopeless
appeal. But whether I did or not there swept through me a sudden
compassion for the fellow. He was indeed a brother-man, and that he
might have killed me with pleasure had he caught me was forgotten in
the extremity of his danger.

Unconsciously I had ceased paddling as the serpent rose to engage my
pursuer, so now the skiff still drifted close beside the two. The
monster seemed to be but playing with his victim before he closed his
awful jaws upon him and dragged him down to his dark den beneath the
surface to devour him. The huge, snakelike body coiled and uncoiled
about its prey. The hideous, gaping jaws snapped in the victim's face.
The forked tongue, lightning-like, ran in and out upon the copper skin.

Nobly the giant battled for his life, beating with his stone hatchet
against the bony armor that covered that frightful carcass; but for all
the damage he inflicted he might as well have struck with his open palm.

At last I could endure no longer to sit supinely by while a fellowman
was dragged down to a horrible death by that repulsive reptile.
Embedded in the prow of the skiff lay the spear that had been cast
after me by him whom I suddenly desired to save. With a wrench I tore
it loose, and standing upright in the wobbly log drove it with all the
strength of my two arms straight into the gaping jaws of the
hydrophidian.

With a loud hiss the creature abandoned its prey to turn upon me, but
the spear, imbedded in its throat, prevented it from seizing me though
it came near to overturning the skiff in its mad efforts to reach me.

VIII

THE MAHAR TEMPLE

THE ABORIGINE, APPARENTLY UNINJURED, CLIMBED quickly into the skiff,
and seizing the spear with me helped to hold off the infuriated
creature. Blood from the wounded reptile was now crimsoning the waters
about us and soon from the weakening struggles it