But something else was under water, something that moved darkly, but had arms and legs, though it was as vast as an elephant. It was approaching him swiftly, knowingly.
Now he knew why he had been told, with such a voice of doom, to jump into the water.
Planter's blood was still up because of that brisk battle with Disbro. He was young, strong, in gilt-edge condition. His new impulse was to keep on fighting, against the thing which had the size, the intention, and apparently the appetite, to engulf him.
The huge swimmer was a Skygor, of tremendous size. Logic in the back of Planter's head bade him not to be amazed; on this damp, fecund world, monsters of such sort were not too unthinkable. As it broke surface, he heard a hubbub like many steam sirens. The smaller Skygors, on housetops and bridges, were all chanting some sort of ear-bursting litany, waving their flippers in unison. Plainly they worshiped this giant of their race. He, Planter, was a gift—a sacrifice.
He swam speedily, but his pursuer was speedier still. With ponderous overhand strokes it overhauled him. An arm as long as his body, with a flipper-hand like a tremendous scoop shovel, extended to clutch at him. A mouth like an open trunk gaped, large enough to gulp him bodily.
Only one thing to do. He did it—dived at once, turning under water and darting below and in an opposite direction from the great swimmer. By pure, happy chance, his kicking feet struck the soft cushion of its mighty belly, and he heard the thrumming gasp of the wind he knocked out of it. Coming up beyond, he swam desperately toward a nearby building. If he could climb up, away, from this huge, hungry being.
"No, not here!" That was a Skygor, poking its ugly smirking face from a window-hole. He tried to seize the sill to draw himself out of the water, and it lifted a dagger to slash at his knuckles.
But then it gasped, wriggled. The paw opened, the knife fell. Planter managed to catch it as it struck the water. A moment later he saw what had happened—big human hands were fastened on the slimy throat from behind. The Skygor, struggling, was pulled back out of sight. In its place showed the flat, simple features of Max.
"Huhh!" gurgled Max. "You in trouble, Mr. Planter?"