strous thing appeared far off, to stalk like a balloon on
twenty-foot legs in their direction. With incredible quickness it loomed
over them. Six feet through, its body was roughly spherical, and carried
on those amazingly long, jointed legs. It stared at them with beady,
cruel eyes, but finally teetered on its way again, leaving them
untouched.

"I'll never again be able to see a daddy longlegs without shivering,"
said Jim. His voice was unconsciously sunk to little more than a
whisper. This was a world of titanic dangers and fierce alarms. Instinct
cautioned both of them to make no more noise than necessary. "We had
better make for your termitary at once."

Dennis had been thinking that for some time. But he had been unable to
locate a termite tunnel anywhere. Matt had been supposed to set them
down near one. No doubt, to his own mind, he _had_ placed them near one
of the termite highways. But his ideas of distance were now so radically
different from theirs that Dennis, at least, was unable to see a tunnel
opening anywhere.

He spoke his thoughts to Jim. "There must be a tunnel opening somewhere
very near us," he concluded. "But I--Good heavens!"

Both crouched in wary alarm, spears held for a thrust, if necessary, at
the frightful thing approaching them from the near jungle.

Thirty feet long, it was, and six feet through, a blunt-ended, untapered
serpent that glistened a moist crimson color in the rays of the sun. The
trees quaked and rocked as it brushed against them in its deliberate
advance. Dead leaves many feet across and too heavy for the combined
efforts of both men to have budged, were pushed lightly this way and
that as the monster moved. The very ground seemed to shake under its
appalling weight.

"If _that_ comes after us," breathed Jim, "we're through!"

But now Denny drew a long breath of relief.

"Be still," he said. "Make no sound, and no move, and it will probably
pass us by. It's blind, and couldn't harm us in any way--unless it
rolled on us."

The two stood motionless while the nightmare serpent crashed by. Then,
with the earthworm fading into the distance, they resumed their hunt for
the near tunnel entrance.

* * * * *

Jim, whose eyes were more accustomed to searching jungle depths, finally
saw it--a black hole leading down into a small hill about two hundred
yards ahead of them. He pointed.

"There we are. Come on."

Laboriously they set out towa