CHAPTER XXIV

NEW TERRORS

"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and dragon shalt thou trample under feet."--Ps. xci, 13

Shriek after shriek rent the air.

The children, too, had glimpsed the hideous black creature lying half-imbedded in mud. A few inches more and Mollie would have stepped upon it.

"Oh, look!" they cried.

The creature was moving. It was coming toward them. It was raising its horrible head and opening its mouth.

"Oh! Oh! Hit will bite off Mollie's legs--"

"Hit'll swaller some on us whole--"

"Oh, Mollie, whut es hit--whut es hit?"

Panic seized them as they scrambled for safety along the low-over-hanging limb of the tree Mollie had just indicated.

But Mollie did not know what the creature was. She had never even seen a picture of so terrifying an object. Her face went white under its coating of tan and mud. Her knees shook. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. She was powerless to move. Her arms fell limp at her sides and her teeth chattered.

"Quick, Mollie! He'll git yo', shore."

It was Jimmie's voice. It roused Mollie from the momentary paralysis that had seized her at sight of the on-coming horror. She sprang for the bough and struggled to pull herself and little Doris upward. Never in her recollection had Mollie been conscious of such over-powering weakness. She was shaking from head to foot. It seemed she would fall before she succeeded finally in getting herself beyond the reach of those yawning, murderous jaws, up-stretched toward her naked feet.

"Git up--git up! Set clost. Hol' on tight," she managed to articulate to the wide-eyed, frightened children. "Lawsey, I dunno whut hit air."

"W-w-will hit come--u-u-up hyar?" wailed Leathy, tears rolling over her mud-stained cheeks.

Mollie steadied herself with her hands clutching the tree limb and looked down.

The giant shape was moving about in the muddy water. It seemed to have a tail. It did not look as if it could climb. But even as she looked, the fearsome thing reared its grisly head and extended its jaws again with terrible menace. Mollie shuddered but did not cry out. The creature was directly underneath. It floundered. It lashed the mud with its whole body. Was it the devil coming right up out of the pit to confront them and prevent their escape?

Cold chills crept over the courageous little girl. Still she did not lose her nerve entirely. It was the shock and lack of knowledge that disturbed her. She had not expected to encounter wild beasts and gigantic creatures, the existence of which she had never even dreamed.

True, she was frightened--terribly frightened. But not for herself. Never once did the little heroine think of herself. It was of the baby strapped to her back and the dozen small children tied to a rope behind her.

The sense of responsibility weighed upon her. She had led the children forth into the swamps. If any evil befell them there she would be to blame. They had trusted her. She must not fail them.

Johnnie lifted his crutch. "Shall I lam 'im?" he asked, somewhat nervously.

"No--Oh, lawsey, no!" cried Mollie. "Doan rile 'im more'n he is. Hit cain't climb. Hit's too big."

The muddy water ahead commenced to churn furiously. From out it another black bulk became visible. Another and another followed. It was like one long, endless serpent making voluminous convulsions and creeping steadily onward in the direction of the children, hanging precariously to the limb of that mangrove tree. If it should break--

Again they screamed and clung to one another. This horror was beyond anything their childish imaginations had ever conjured.

And following them, ever coming nearer and nearer, was the dog. His baying had never ceased. They could see him, now plunging along, clawing at the mangrove roots to regain his footing, pulling himself up by desperate efforts, baying with the weird, nerve-racking regularity of his kind, his livid mouth hanging open, eyes gleaming from the strain of his endeavors to keep himself alive and overtake the children.

Would he leap at them and jerk them down from their present security into the very mouths of these appalling reptiles? Mollie didn't think so.

"Never yo' min' Tige," called Mollie, still speaking with difficulty through teeth that continued to chatter like castanets. "He ain't so mean's Pete thunk he war. He'll git chawed up, shore es sartin, ef he lan's on ary o' them thing's." She lifted up her voice then and shouted back to the plunging dog that she had pitied from the day Peter had kicked him into unconsciousness for some trivial thing. "Go back, Tige. Go hum--go hum!"

But Tige had no thought now of turning back. He knew his best friend was up in that tree and he came on, unable to sense that his formidable appearance belied his kind intentions and only increased the terror of the little ones whose prattling voices he had loved to hear as he lay, day after day, in his gloomy prison house. He only knew that he was free at last and that he was coming to them as fast as he could.

Poor Tige! He reached the foot of the tree, hesitated, gave one startled, guttural sniff mingled with a growl of fear, caught one glimpse of the dragon-like monster under the tree, then dropped his tail and bounded back, faster and faster, in the direction from whence he had come. Whether or not he ever succeeded in re-crossing the death-gripping bog at the farm entrance Mollie never knew. She could not think of Tige. Her struggle, at that moment, was for the string of little, human sparrows, lined out on that limb behind her.

Her nerves had arrived at so sensitive a state that even the rustling of a leaf was enough to startle her, but the sound which now crept to her ears was far more ominous than the mere falling of a bit of foliage. It was accompanied by an almost imperceptible jar. Again it came. Mollie's blood ran cold. She gave one quick glance in the direction of the sound then another down at the swirling welter of what she had now decided were "water-hawgs" almost directly under the limb upon which they were perched. If that limb broke and the children fell, nothing on earth could save them!

"Set still," she commanded, and there was that in her tone which made every one of the little flock know that their lives depended upon instant obedience. "Doan move--ary one o' yo'. Doan' jar." Her eyes, shining like stars, scanned the trees about them. The trees were closer together than at any part of the swamp just crossed. And it was strange that there should be more water. Were they nearing the river, she wondered. If the trees stopped and the river commenced, what would they do, even after they had passed this present danger.

Questions crowded upon her. She brushed them aside. She had heard that ominous crackling sound again. Every second increased their peril.

"Willie," said Mollie, addressing the boy with the rope, "Kin yo' fling thet rope ter thet tree over yan? 'Tain't so good but we gotter go over. Be keerful. Doan jar. An' git ready, ary one o' yo' ter hang on ter th' rope. Leathy, doan cry, now. Nobody's a-goin' ter fall."

Willie flung the rope. It caught, tightened, held fast. But the jar was more than the limb could stand. It creaked again--they all heard it now--and slowly, surely, commenced to sag. There was no mistake. The limb upon which the little flock of sparrows was perched was breaking under them!

"Oh, God, hol' us up," cried Mollie, suddenly inspired, and instantly the panic which a few moments before had gripped them passed as suddenly as it had come, and the children seemed fairly to develop wings, so quickly did they contrive, by means of the rope, to cross from the breaking limb to the tree beyond without a single mishap.

"Keep right on a'goin', keep right on a-goin," called Mollie, while Johnnie extended his crutch again and again to help first one and then another get a firmer hold upon the rope which brought them all up to another limb; for the strange, floundering creatures with the lashing tails and jaws that could swallow a child were still all about underneath.

Leon was beginning to be fretful. His throat was sore when they started. The frightful experiences through which they had passed had not served to improve his spirits. Leathy, in her terror, kept edging closer and closer to her brother. Her little hands clutched nervously at his waistband as they all squirmed and crawled slowly across the limb to what seemed to be a sort of elevation just beyond.

They were almost across now, Mollie had stepped down onto a log. There was no water nor mud beyond it. One had to climb up a sort of rubbish-like bank. The little ones on the limb made haste to follow their leaders. Leon jerked himself forward. Leathy wasn't ready to move. The button of the waistband gave way. Leathy's little hands still clutched. At all events, she held of the top of his breeches. She hitched herself along another inch and Leon pulled ahead a good six inches. The inevitable happened. Danger and disaster were all forgotten in that tragic moment when the little fellow realized that his small twin sister had, in her eagerness to escape, exposed his rear anatomy to the cool breeze of the tree tops. At the risk of his own life he released his hold on the limb with one hand and, reaching back struck at his twin and uttered those momentous words which they all remembered in after years:

"Leg-go my pants!"

Leathy commenced to cry. But as they dropped, one by one upon the rubbish heap and edged their way across the log just before ascending the little slope beyond, they heard Mollie's voice calling, merrily:

"Hit's all right, chil'en. We-uns air hyar. Thar hain't nawthin' ter tech us now. Git erlong up. Help Leathy, Bobbie. Jimmie, whut er yo' a-waitin' fer? Hyar's th' road by thet thar river yo'-uns war a-talkin' 'bout. Th' river's jist acrost on t'other side. Thet thar mud water runs under th' road. Thet's how them thar critters swum inter th' swamp. Git erlong, now. We-uns hes gotter fin' us a boat, so's Pete won't ketch us. Come on, Jimmie--come on!"

(But Jimmie was waiting to make a gesture of defiance at the biggest alligator. Leon was tearfully struggling with his pants!)