d!" she said, in a queer, toneless voice. "He died
trying to get--that thing! I will get it, and destroy it!"

Before I could detain her, even had I sought to do so, she stepped
into the filthy water, struggled to recover her foothold, and sank
above her waist into its sliminess. Without hesitation she began
to advance toward the niche which contained the slipper. In the
middle of the pool she stopped.

What memory it was which supplied the clue to the identity of that
nauseating smell, heaven alone knows; but as the girl stopped and
drew herself up rigidly--then turned and leapt wildly back toward
the door--I knew what occasioned that sickly odour!

She screamed once, dreadfully--shrilly--a scream of agonizing
fear that I can never forget. Then, roughly I grasped her, for the
need was urgent--and dragged her out on to the floor beside me.
With her wet garments clinging to her limbs, she fell prostrate on
the stones.

A yard from the brink the slimy water parted, and the yellow snout
of a huge crocodile was raised above the surface! The saurian eyes,
hungrily malevolent, rose next to view!

The extremity of our danger found me suddenly cool. As the thing
drew its slimy body up out of the poor I waited. The jaws were
extended toward the prostrate body, were but inches removed from
it, dripped their saliva upon the soddened skirt--when I bent
forward, and at a range of some ten inches emptied the remaining
three loaded chambers of my revolver into the creature's left
eye!

Upchurned in bloody foam became the water of that dreadful place....
As one recalls the incidents of a fevered dream, I recall
dragging Carneta away from the contorted body of the death-stricken
reptile. A nightmare chaos of horrid, revolting sights and sounds
forms my only recollection of quitting the dungeon of the slipper.

I succeeded in carrying her up the stairs and out through the empty
rooms on to the verandah; but there, from sheer exhaustion, I laid
her down. I had no means of reviving her and I lacked the strength
to carry her farther. Having recharged my revolver, I stood watching
her where she lay, wanly beautiful in the dim light.

There was no doubt in my mind respecting the fate of Earl Dexter,
nor could I doubt that the slipper in the dungeon below was a
duplicate of the real one. It was a death-trap into which he had
lured Dexter and which he had left baited for whomsoever might trace
the cracksman to the Gate Ho