I climbed gingerly out of the cleft, and very cautiously raised my head above the edge. No, by no manner of means was he gone. He was lying about fifty yards away, banging his head upon the ground and lashing the boulders with his tail; some of them were smitten to splinters as I watched. His mouth still dripped yellow saliva, and his teeth were meeting with resounding cracks. His tongue still lapped itself about his tortured lips, and in his agony he rolled over, writhing upon his back and beating his four great limbs convulsively toward the sky. Lumps of his scaly skin were scattered about on the granite as feathers scatter from a shot bird. His nails clattered as they swept an overhanging mass of granite in one of their aimless gyrations. Finally there was one last angry flurry of legs and tail, and he rolled back upon his belly; his horny eyelids closed; his head sank wearily upon his fore-arms.

As I turned to tell Gwen I kicked a stone beside me. It fell with a metallic clang, and in a moment the green eyes were open and staring at me. He lifted his head, and his huge limbs began to shove his carcass back toward me. There was a revengeful glare in those baleful eyes, and I popped back into the cleft like a rabbit into his burrow.

I heard him come dragging along above. Then, looking up, I saw the thin snout just overlap the edge and lie still. Evidently he was settling down to his sentinelship. Afraid of another dose of the biting pain we had inflicted, he did not dare to venture his head again into our cave. He meant to starve us out.

Chapter XVIII, pages 290-291