With each stride of his monstrous steed he was being borne farther and farther from his friends; deeper and deeper into the unknown wilds of this subterranean world. He knew that ere long, unless he took prompt action, he would be carried beyond all reach of aid, yet, so great was the fear that gripped him, for a time he could do nought, save cling convulsively to the armoured hide of the brute he rode.
As his first panic subsided, and his brain resumed its sway of his trembling body, he began to cast about for some means of escape from his predicament.
Full twenty feet he was from the ground, and the Triceratops was travelling at the rate of at least thirty miles an hour, so that a leap could not be other than dangerous. Yet it must be done if he would ever see his friends again.
The thought that perhaps he might break a limb in descending deterred him for some time, but at length he summoned up courage to make the attempt.
To do so, however, he must first rise to a standing position upon the huge back of the Triceratops, in order to obtain sufficient spring to leap clear of the pounding hoofs.
This feat he accomplished, after considerable difficulty; then, while he stood essaying to leap, the brute beneath him swerved suddenly to the right.
It might have been that the scientist’s movements irritated the creature, and so caused it to change its course, or it may have been but a whim on its part.
However it was, the sudden move destroyed the professor’s balance; he was flung headlong and dropped, in a stunned and bleeding heap, beside the track.
Nought he knew of the coming of the wolf-men who had already captured Garth; nought of the passage of the bridge; even the rough journey thence to the caves of the savages did not rouse him.
When he did at length return to a sense of things around him, two impressions forced themselves upon his brain. One was the sensation that utter, impenetrable darkness shut him in—darkness, thick and tangible; the other, that every bone in his body had been broken and re-set.