Also, the skin of this huge reptile, which could not have measured less than fifty feet in length by four feet in depth, was here and there corroded into rusty excrescences, as though some fungus or lichen had grown upon it like grey moss on an ancient wall.
Indeed, its appearance seemed to point to extreme antiquity.[*] [*] Crocodiles are proverbially long-lived, but Leonard could never discover the age of this particular reptile.

On enquiry he was able to trace it back for three hundred yards, and tradition said that it had always dwelt among the People of the Mist from "the beginning of time." At least it was very old, and under the name of the Snake had been an object of worship for many generations.

How it came among the People of the Mist is difficult to say, for no other specimen appeared to exist in the country.

Perhaps it was captured in some distant age and placed in the cave by the priests, to figure as an incarnation of the Snake that was the object of their worship.
Hearing the disturbance in the water, the reptile had emerged from the cave where it dwelt beneath the feet of the idol, to seek its accustomed food, which consisted of the human victims that were cast to it at certain intervals.

It reared its hideous head and glared round, then of a sudden the monster and the victim vanished together into the depths.
Sick with horror Leonard drew himself back into a sitting posture, and glanced up at Juanna.