"The woods are full of such, Jack."
Jack rowed with one hand, drawing in his other oar so that it might not strike the rocks in case the passage narrowed, and then got out his pocket flash and shot a strong ray ahead of him.
"Good gracious! what's that?" suddenly exclaimed Percival in accents of terror. "Back water, Jack, for heaven's sake!"
"What is it, Dick?" asked Jack, turning his head and sending the light directly in front of him. "I don't see anything."
"It's gone, Jack, or the light does not strike it now, but it was something awful. It fairly gave me the creeps to look at it."
"But what was it, Dick?" and Jack slowly turned the light this way and that so as to get a sight at the object which had so terrified Percival.
"I don't know. It had two awful eyes and a beak and a lot of legs, or arms, or whatever they were, and a fat body which—there it is, Jack!"
Jack saw it and shuddered.
"It's a devil fish, an octopus, Dick," he muttered, turning the light now full upon the grisly object squatting on a rock at the farther end of the water cave and glaring balefully at the boys through his blood-red eyes, like some demon of the deep, the very mention of which might send terror to the bravest hearts.
"We'd better get out quick, Jack!" gasped Percival. "If that fellow——"