Again they plunged on through the hot darkness. Water and air alike were stagnant. The close steam of the swamp was suffocating, and the darkness was so intense that Godfrey had to follow rather by sound than by sight.
All of a sudden the bushes broke away. They were in the open once more. At that very moment the cloud broke, and the moon shone out clear. The white light fell upon a sheet of water, a wide lagoon, which lay smooth as oil, bounded on every side by a black wall of swamp vegetation.
"This seems to be where we swim, Fred," said Godfrey quietly.
"No," replied Fred. "The causeway crosses, but it's out of sight below the water. Come on."
"Anything's better than those horrible bushes and creepers," said Godfrey. He looked at his watch. "Fred, it's twenty to eight."
"We shall do it," was the confident reply. "It's easier going the far side." As he spoke, Kinnersly stepped out from the shore, and, feeling his way cautiously, walked steadily out across the lake.
Here and there were ugly gaps, but, in the main, the ancient masonry built for some unknown purpose by long-forgotten Spaniards was sound. Their spirits rose as they pressed on rapidly under the welcome light of the full moon.
They were a couple of hundred yards from shore when, all of a sudden, a black object, for all the world like a floating log, rose noiselessly from the depths close on Kinnersly's right.
He stopped sharply, and Godfrey saw him draw his revolver from the holster at his waist.
Godfrey needed no telling. He knew the nature of the new peril which confronted them. An alligator!