Rurak felt the hollow log spill over and in that instant caught a glimpse of the other boat in a like predicament. The bowl-boats of the Swamp Dwellers were scattered, racing madly away from the great shape emerging from the muddy thickness of the river. Then the foul scum of the water's surface closed over his head and he was fighting madly to reach the surface again.
A long snaky neck, strangely pink and innocent of bony plates or scales, had sprouted from the saurian thing's vague bulk and vast ridged jaws were gaping wide just above one of the fleeing boats as Rurak's head broke through to the surface. The Yzaps whistled in wild terror and made as though to leap over the side but that enormous maw engulfed them and they disappeared from view. Only a few shreds of the bowl-boat dropped from the corners of the thing's mouth.
Then it was gone.
The ten dugouts of Jokar Ged swept down upon the demoralized Swamp Dwellers and soon Yzap fought Yzap in hand-to-hand combat.
"Nidan!" called Tis from nearby.
Now Rurak could see four more heads in the muddy stream about him. They were all safe then! Tis was swimming toward the downstream side of the artificial floating island of the Yzaps.
"We hide here until night," Tis told them all as they gathered about him swimming. "No place to go ashore. Only swamp. We steal a boat tonight. Go on down river in it."
"Yzaps on the island!" gasped Elko Sohm, looking like some befouled bladder-doll of the primitive Martian tribes.
"They watch the battle," Tis clicked.