The day came to put in trial this desperate invention for the overthrow of the heroic enemy. A company of about five hundred men, under five leaders, went forth to their allotted labor. Day after day they toiled under the earth. Cautiously in the morning they sallied out to their duty, and at night stole back as cautiously to their slumbers. They had finished the whole plan in detail as mapped out by its projector; they had hollowed the earth with their far withdrawn instruments of labor, until the weight of the Mastodon rested at noon, casting its shadow far east, upheld but by a thin shelf of earth. They toiled on. With his quick intelligent ear he heard the click of their many mattocks, and giving a bold and agile spring — wonderful for so ponderous a frame — he pressed his feet strongly upon the mould; it yielded and fell in with dire ruin, and Behemoth landed beyond its fatal circle on the bright greensward, and bellowed forth a fearful roar of triumph and scorn.

The subterranean toilers, when they heard the thunderous voice of Behemoth, clear and sonorous on high, knew that he had escaped; while not a few of their number, whose fool-hardiness had carried them too near the falling mass, perished under it. The remainder, abandoning all things, fled, dismayed, toil-worn and discomfited, toward their native villages.

Part First, pages 72-73