But Rory was of a different opinion, and no sooner had he lain down than, “Oh, Allan, Allan! look, look!” he cried.
Allan saw it too—a terrible shape, seemingly made of fire, wriggling up from the dark depths and approaching the spot where they lay, until they could see it easily. A gigantic snake apparently, as big as the stem of the tallest oak, all quivering and phosphorescent, with crimson eyes and a mouth of awful teeth! The boys felt fear now if they never felt it before. They were spellbound, too; they could not remove their gaze from the apparition, and a kind of nightmare dread took possession of their hearts.
But the thing disappeared at last; it vanished as it had come, leaving only the blackness of darkness. The spell was broken, and they skated back again towards the yacht in silence, but wondering greatly at what they had seen.
The country around them, with its hills and its forests, looked dismal enough now at times. There was no cloud scenery, and consequently no lovely sunrises or sunsets, but just in the gloaming hour, soon after the sun had gone down, the lower part of the sky all round, between the immediate horizon and the upper vault of blue, used to assume a strange sea-green hue, in which the bright stars sparkled and shone like diamonds of the purest water.
“Hallo!” said Rory, one day, “I’ve got an idea.”
The day was one of intensest frost—probably the coldest they had ever yet experienced.
“Yes, an idea,” he continued—“and that is more than ever you had, you know, Ralph.”
“Well, then, tell us,” said Ralph; “but I should think it will get frozen hard if you attempt to put it into words.”
“But I won’t,” said Rory; “I mean to put it into action.”
Rory dived down below, and his two companions remained on deck, wondering what he was going to be up to.