The wood we were approaching was of the smaller varieties of trees, ranging in height from two hundred to three hundred feet, and in diameter from twenty to thirty feet. There were none of the colossi of the island of Vepaja that reared their heads upward five thousand feet to penetrate the eternal inner cloud envelope of the planet.
The interior of the forest was illuminated by the mysterious Venusan ground glow, so that, unlike an earthly forest of similar magnitude upon a cloudy day, it was far from dark or gloomy. Yet there was something sinister about it. I cannot explain just what, nor why it should have been.
"I do not like this place," said Duare, with a little shudder; "there is no sight of animal, no sound of bird."
"Perhaps we frightened them away," I suggested.
"I do not think so; it is more likely that there is something else in the forest that has frightened them."
I shrugged. "Nevertheless, we must have food," I reminded her, and I continued on into the forbidding, and at the same time gorgeous, wood that reminded me of a beautiful but wicked woman.
Several times I thought I saw a suggestion of movement among the boles of distant trees, but when I reached them there was nothing there. And so I pressed on, deeper and deeper; and constantly a sense of impending evil grew stronger as I advanced.
"There!" whispered Duare suddenly, pointing. "There is something there, behind that tree. I saw it move."
Something, just glimpsed from the corner of my eye, caught my attention to the left of us; and as I turned quickly in that direction something else dodged behind the bole of a large tree.
Duare wheeled about. "There are things all around us!"