The monster swam slowly along until it came to the rocks I have before mentioned, and there it heaved itself up until the greater part of it was out of the water. "He's going to sit there till he's got the stink out of his nose," said Billy, "and then he'll go back, and all our work's thrown away." I feared that it would be as Billy said, and saw that we should have no security unless the monster were driven clean away or else killed outright. We took up some of the lumps of rock we had collected on the cliff and hurled them at the creature, but it had so lodged itself that we could hit nothing but its tentacles, and our missiles seemed to do them no hurt. If the creature would only expose its body, a great round bag of jelly as it seemed, we might shoot arrows into it and perhaps find a mortal spot. I bade Billy run back to the hut to fetch our bows and arrows while I still kept the monster in sight, and when he returned with them, we hurled pieces of rock just beyond where the creature lay, on the seaward side of it, hoping that the fumes would drive it from its perch towards us, so that we might take a fair aim. And that is what happened, for the monster after a little shifted its posture, and moved slowly away from the poisonous fumes that beset it, back towards its old haunt in the cave. "Now we've got him," says Billy, in great excitement. "You shoot better than me, master; you have a go at him while I keep on flinging the rock t'other side of him, to keep him on the move." Accordingly I shot arrow after arrow at the great central mass, as fast as I could fit them to the bow, while Billy flung stone after stone just beyond it. He cried out in amazement when the arrows clean disappeared in the creature's body, and yet it moved, and he asked me in a whisper whether I didn't think it was the devil himself, and so couldn't be killed, except by God. But I bade him continue his throwing, and I shot at least a dozen arrows, I think, before I thought the creature moved more slowly, as if it had suffered some injury; and it being then close up against the cliff, directly below us, I said to Billy that we would topple down on it the whole of the lumps that were left, and see if that would not deal the finishing stroke. This we did, casting over above a hundred-weight of the stuff, some of which struck the creature, and the rest fell with great hissing and smoking into the water around it. The stench almost overpowered us even at the height we stood, and we withdrew for a little, but returning and peering over we saw the monster floating without any motion, and its tentacles curled up most strangely around it. "I do believe he's dead, the villain!" cried Billy joyously; and though we stood watching for some time longer, there was no motion in the beast, at least no motion of its own, for we saw that it gradually drifted on the current towards the Red Rock; and then we hastened away across that part of the island until we came to