'Yes, that is right,' Alondra agreed. 'I have heard there are such plants on our globe in some remote corners, but I have never seen one before.'
'What does anybody want to keep such a monstrous, uncanny affair for?' queried Jack indignantly.
'I never heard that they grew to such a size,' Alondra added. 'This must have been growing here many years to become so large, I should say.'
'A nice sort of pet to cultivate and pamper!' Jack grumbled. 'What do they feed it on, I wonder? Such a thing ought not to be allowed! It's a public danger!'
'There's a warning on the door,' Gerald reminded him. 'After all, it's our own fault, I 'm afraid people will say, for coming here.'
'My fault, you mean--for I was the one who yielded first to curiosity, and so drew you here,' Alondra confessed.
'Oh, we should have come in on our own, you may be pretty sure of that,' Jack declared. 'We were just discussing the point when we heard you call out.'
'It's a very beautiful flower,' Gerald observed, looking attentively at the large, handsome blossoms, 'and the scent is delicious. Who would imagine that anything so lovely to look at could be so treacherous--so deadly?'
He walked cautiously up near to it to get a clear view, and Jack followed him--partly, as it seemed, to satisfy his own curiosity, and partly to see that his chum did not become too venturesome and get unwittingly caught again.
Meantime, Alondra was evidently thinking deeply. He began to look and search about, first in this direction, then in that. Presently the others noticed his proceedings, and, leaving the side of the pool, went across and asked him what he was doing.
'Before I tell you,' was the reply, 'you must promise that you will say nothing to any one else. If what I am thinking of was mere fancy, I don't wish to be laughed at; and if it turns out that it was not fancy--well, then I still wish that nothing should be said about it just now. Do you understand?'
The two friends readily gave the required promise. 'Well, then, what is troubling me is this: Just as I called out--when I was struggling up to my neck in the water--when, as it seemed to me, I was at my last gasp, and all hope had gone--I saw, or imagined I saw, some one peering at me from among those thick bushes!'