Chapter 4: A Providential Intervention

The valley narrowed as they advanced, the banks rising gently on both sides. Both dragons had flown straight to a grove of tall, spreading trees. On coming near to this, they noticed a faint smell like that of the dragon, and also like the trace they found in the air on leaving the Callisto the day before, after they had sought safety within it. Soon it almost knocked them down.

“We must get to windward,” said Cortlandt. “I already feel faint, and believe those dragons could kill a man by breathing on him.”

Accordingly, they skirted around the grove, and having made a quarter circle--for they did not wish the dragons to wind them--again drew nearer. Tree after tree was passed, and finally they saw an open space twelve or fifteen acres in area at the centre of the grove, when they were arrested by a curious sound of munching. Peering among the trunks of the huge trees, they advanced cautiously, but stopped aghast. In the opening were at least a hundred dragons devouring the toadstools with which the ground was covered. Many of them were thirty to forty feet long, with huge and terribly long, sharp claws, and jaws armed with gleaming batteries of teeth. Though they had evidently lungs, and the claws and mouth of an animal, they reminded the observers in many respects of insects enormously exaggerated, for their wings, composed of a sort of transparent scale, were small, and moved, as they had already seen, at far greater speed than those of a bird. Their projecting eyes were also set rigidly in their heads instead of turning, and consisted of a number of flat surfaces or facets, like a fly’s eye, so that they could see backward and all around, each facet seeing anything the rays from which came at right angles to its surface. This beautiful grove was doubtless their feeding-ground, and, as such, was likely to be visited by many more. Concluding it would be wise to let their wounded game escape, the three men were about to retreat, having found it difficult to breathe the air even at that distance from the monsters, when the wounded dragon that they had observed moving about in a very restless manner, and evidently suffering a good deal from the effect of its wounds, espied them, and, with a roar that made the echoes ring, started towards them slowly along the ground, followed by the entire herd, the nearer of which now also saw them. Seeing that their lives were in danger, the hunters quickly regained the open, and then stretched their legs against the wind. The dragons came through the trees on the ground, and then, raising themselves by their wings, the whole swarm, snorting, and darkening the air with their deadly breath, made straight for the men, who by comparison looked like Lilliputians. With the slug from his right barrel Bearwarden ended the wounded dragon’s career by shooting him through the head, and with his left laid low the one following. Ayrault also killed two huge monsters, and Cortlandt killed one and wounded another. Their supply of prepared cartridges was then exhausted, and they fell back on their revolvers and ineffective spreading shot. Resolved to sell their lives dearly, they retreated, keeping their backs to the wind, with the poisonous dragons in front. But the breeze was very slight, and they were being rapidly blinded and asphyxiated by the loathsome fumes, and deafened by the hideous roaring and snapping of the dragons’ jaws. Realizing that they could not much longer reply to the diabolical host with lead, they believed their last hour had come, when the ground on which they were making their last stand shook, there was a rending of rocks and a rush of imprisoned steam that drowned even the dragons’ roar, and they were separated from them by a long fissure and a wall of smoke and vapour. Struggling back from the edge of the chasm, they fell upon the ground, and then for the first time fully realized that the earthquake had saved them, for the dragons could not come across the opening, and would not venture to fly through the smoke and steam. When they recovered somewhat from the shock, they cut a number of cartridges in the same way that they had prepared those that had done them such good service, and kept one barrel of each gun loaded with that kind.

“We may thank Providence,” said Bearwarden, “for that escape. I hope we shall have no more such close calls.”

With a parting glance at the chasm that had saved their lives, and from which a cloud still arose, they turned slightly to the right of their former course and climbed the gently rising bank. When near the top, being tired of their exciting experiences, they sat down to rest. The ground all about them was covered with mushrooms, white on top and pink underneath.