ook hold of him. Pull him
under in a moment."

"Do you think one of those creatures would attack in the water?" said
Sir Humphrey.

"I've seen one drag a pig down," said Briscoe. "They're as much at home
in the water as out, and they can swim as easily as a water-snake."

"Then there's nothing to prevent that thing from thrusting out its head
and seizing one of us," said Brace.

"Nothing at all," replied Briscoe, and then he smiled as he saw the men
exchanging glances and Dan taking out a keen bowie-knife. "But he
won't. He'll lie down below there among the roots for hours, I daresay.
If he did come up of course we should give him a shot."

"Ugh!" said Brace, shuddering. "But what are we going to do?"

"Push on up the creek," said his brother. "We may come to an open part.
Go on, my lads."

The man with the boat-hook went on catching the boughs and drawing the
boat along, and twice over a splash and the following movement of the
water amongst the mossy, muddy tree-trunks told of the presence of some
loathsome reptile; but the men sat fast, gazing stolidly to right and
left in search of danger, and more than once Brace gave a glance at his
double gun as if to see that it was cocked and ready.

The sensation was not pleasant, and it attacked everyone in the boat.
The American might be right, they thought, and the serpent remain
startled and quiescent down in the depths of the muddy water, but still
they felt the possibility of that terrible head darting out at a victim,
and a low sigh of relief rose again and again as the distance from where
the serpent fell increased.

It was plain enough now that they were in a winding creek whose sides
were dense with trunks and branches forming an impenetrable barrier had
there been the slightest inclination to land; but all thought of this
passed away almost from the beginning. In fact, it was perfectly clear
that the only way to penetrate the forest was to go up some waterway
such as the one they were in, and this they followed slowly for a few
hundred yards, the man with the boat-hook cleverly guiding the vessel in
and out amongst the many obstacles, till the place grew darker and
darker through the density of the foliage overhead.

The creek was for the most part painfully still--painfully, for the
weird gloom raised up the idea that thousands of eyes were watching
their movements, and that at any moment some terrible attack might be
made.

That they were surr