Max was sickened at the sight, and yet he felt that he dare not take his eyes away.
Horrible water monsters sought the body, and almost instantly crabs and lizards, fish with ugly fins, and water newts, were covering the remains of the poor Arab and rapidly devouring all that was left of him.
Ibrahim was raving.
He imagined he saw all sorts of frightful shapes, wanting to tear him to pieces.
“I shall go mad,” exclaimed Max, and he felt that it was only a question of a few minutes.
The boat drifted along slowly, and Max wondered whether they would ever again stand on land.
Once he thought he heard human voices, but it must have been imagination.
At the very moment when the delicate cords of his brain seemed ready to snap asunder, a thought saved him.
He wondered how the water had made the tunnels.
That set him thinking, and he fancied that the underground channels had been made by the sheer force of the water, and its petrifying action—that perhaps at some time the sand had drifted to the water and become by its action solid rock.