Crash—crash—crash—outside was a grating roar, and caught by the rising tide the ship surged forward. The bulge of it swung against the cave mouth, and in an instant caught and gripped the pendant neck, sawing and grinding its flesh against the jagged edges. The prisoned head in its agony beat frantically against the surface, and the water shot right and left in angry ripples as the breath of the Monster’s scream burst upon it.

The revolver dropped from my hand. I snatched Gwen to me, and dived into the hot, turbid flood—down beneath the struggling head, down beneath the ship’s keel, out into the warm stillness of the cleft beyond.

Gasping and choking from our sudden immersion I dragged my darling over the edge, and half-led, half-carried her up the rocky slope, leaving a long wet drip upon the granite. The enraged and baffled yelling of the captured Beast rang out piercingly among the cliff echoes; the lashings of his great tail smote upon the empty hold of the ship as upon a drum. In his vain attempts to draw his neck from the trap he drove and spurred at the boulders frantically, and the clatter of his long nails upon the pebbles sounded like the scratchings of some monstrous cat.

Chapter XVIII, page 298