Loob came to help, but Grôm, his brain keen in every emergency, stopped him.
“Keep off!” he ordered. “Keep off! and keep watch!”
Then he seized A-ya by one arm, rushed her to the edge of the bank, and dragged her with him into the water.
At this point the water was not much more than 264 three feet deep. They crouched down in it, heads under, for nearly a minute; while Loob, spear in hand, stood over them, his wild little eyes scanning the water depths in front and the jungle depths behind for the approach of any foe.
When they could hold their breath no longer, they stood up. Their red assailants were floating off on the current; but the fiery poison remained, and they bathed each other’s scarlet and scorched shoulders assiduously, forgetful for the moment of everything besides. At this moment a gigantic water python reared its head from the leafage close by, fixed its flat, lidless, glittering eyes upon them, and drew back to strike. But in the next second Loob’s ready spear was thrust clean through its throat, and his yell of warning tore the air. Grôm and A-ya whipped up onto the bank like a pair of otters: and the python, mortally stricken, shot out into the water over their heads, carrying Loob’s spear with it, gripped tight in the constriction of its throat muscles.
As the lashing body struck the surface the water boiled about it, suddenly alive with crocodiles. Balked of their human prey, they fell upon the python. One of the monsters shot straight up, half-way out of the water, with two convulsive coils of the python’s tail wrapped crushingly about its jaws; but the python, with Loob’s spear through its throat, could only struggle blindly. A moment more and it was bitten in two, and the crocodiles were fighting monstrously among themselves for the writhing fragments. 265
“You got us out of that just in time,” said Grôm, grinning upon the little scout with approval.
A-ya wrung the water out of her heavy hair with both hands, and threw the masses back with an upward toss of her head.
“I hate ants,” she said, shuddering. “Let’s get away from here.”
II