For three days we glided through that lovely land, whose loveliness was a mask, so to speak, and but made the place the more terrible, for it was a habitat of creatures very strange indeed. Late in the afternoon of this third day--how strange these words seem! But what others can I use? Late in the afternoon of this third day, we entered a swamp. The current became sluggish, our drift even more so, and right glad were we to put the oars--of which, though, there were only two pairs--in motion and send her along, for that was not a place in which any sane man would want to linger. Besides the oars, however, there were several paddles, and we sent the boat at a good clip through the dark and sullen waters. Weird masses of moss and weirder filaments hung from the great branches, which at times met over the stream. We were passing underneath one of these gnarled and bearded arches when there came a piercing shriek from Nandradelphis, accompanied rather than followed by a cry from Drorathusa of: "_Loopmuke!_" I dropped the oar and reached for my revolver, turned and saw Ondonarkus, standing in the bow, whip out his sword and slash savagely at the winged monster as it came driving down upon him. Chapter 38 SOMETHING BESIDES MADNESS There was a shock, the boat, I thought, was surely going over. Came a heavy plunge, and she righted, though sluggishly, for water had come pouring over the side in gallons. Ondonarkus had vanished. The demon was struggling madly on the surface, one of its great wings almost shorn clean from the body. An instant, and the head of Ondonarkus was seen emerging. Almost at that very second, Milton Rhodes fired at the ape-bat; a convulsive shudder passed through the hideous body, which slowly sank and disappeared. Ondonarkus showed the most admirable coolness. He did not dash at the side of the boat, as nine men out of ten would have done, but swam quietly to the stern, where he was drawn inboard without shipping a spoonful of water, unhurt but minus his sword. Two hours afterwards, we reached firm ground, which soon became high and rocky. The vegetation there was sparse and dwarfish, and the place had a look indescribably wild and forbidding. Then at last we came to the end of the cavern itself. Yes, there before us, beetling up for hundreds of feet, up to the very roof, rose the rocky wall--into a cleft in which the river slowly and silently went gliding, like some monstrous serpent. We passed the night in that spot and in the morning entered the cleft, which, in my troubled imagination, seemed to open wider to receive us.