But the chant kept up, growing louder and louder:
“The ghost of Crooked Nose will drown his
slayer!
Drown, drown, drown his slayer,
Drown his slayer in the sea!”
Out of the woods came running more and more people at the noise of the chant. And as they caught what was going on, they took up the burden of it, until hundreds and thousands of them were singing it.
But, with a mighty turn and struggle, Probably Arboreal went under again, as to his head and body; his feet for an instant swished into the air, and everyone but Probably Arboreal himself saw what was hanging on to one of them.
It was neither ghost, shark, god, nor devil. It was a monstrous oyster; a bull oyster, evidently. All oysters were much larger in those days than they are now, but this oyster was a giant, a mastodon, a mammoth among oysters, even for those days.
“It is an oyster, an oyster, an oyster!” cried the crowd, as Probably Arboreal's head and shoulders came out of the water again.
Big Mouth, the poet, naturally chagrined, and hating to yield up his dramatic idea, tried to raise another chant: