Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic

by Frank Savile

He was turning—turning—turning; in another second his huge neck would swing round upon me; I should be a mere swelling in that monstrous throat.

My knees were palsied by a terror that scarcely allowed me to rise. My joints were as water within me. If ever man realized the terrors of nightmare in the flesh, I did so during those two fearful seconds when I scrambled to my feet, and raced across the ten yards that separated me from the mouth of the tunnel in the rock. I leaped into it like a rabbit before the greedy jaws of a terrier.

The others were already jammed in its narrow recesses. As I joined them the last light fell into the stream with a hiss. Kicking, reeling, panting, snatching at each other and at the rocks, we fought along that pipe-like passage, every nerve in our bodies tingling with expectant terror. My hair bristled on my head as I heard the snap of those grim jaws behind me, and for one awful moment I felt the horrible breath sing past my cheek. I ducked to very earth, and at the same moment felt the rasp of the eager tongue upon my heel. Calling aloud in abject terror I plunged forward, bearing down Gerry and Lessaution with me. We struggled together in the darkness, splashing up a little stream, and wallowing in the turbid mud, while above our very heads, it seemed, we could hear the hiss and pant of the straining lips. On hands and knees we jostled and crawled in the darkness.

As we drew away from the sounds behind us, I managed after a nervous effort or two to strike a vesta. The match sputtered, flared, and then burnt up steadily. Lessaution was still grasping his extinguished dip, and thrust the wick into the flame. As it took fire he held it up, and in its steady light we saw the nearness of our escape.

Not ten yards away the long neck strained and weaved desperately, bowing towards us with frantic efforts. The wicked green eyes flamed, and the teeth snapped and chattered greedily. The murky breath from between them flooded the cavern noisomely. The whole horrible scene stood out in frightful distinctness against the background of dark rock.

Then the dip-flame reached Lessaution’s fingers, and with a curse he dropped it. The fall of the darkness upon that brief but all too vivid glimpse of horror unmanned us all. With a gasp we turned and fled recklessly into the darkness of the waterway without waiting for a light, paddling and splashing through the pools, tripping each other up, reeling, wrestling, smiting and bruising our limbs against the rocks. Finally with bleeding fingers, and wet with perspiration and roof-drip we stumbled out into the dimness of the temple cave, panting, dishevelled, like whipped curs, coughing still with the vile stench of that fearful kennel, shivering yet with the narrowness of our escape.

With broken sentences and half-coherent words we arranged the order of our ascent, and were hauled up one by one. With grateful lungs and dazzled eyes we greeted the freshness of the glacier slopes, though it was with dejected mien we slunk back to the ship. We sought victual, and later, tobacco, discussing the same on deck for appreciable minutes before any one ventured to refer to our adventure, even Lessaution’s fund of conversation being dried up by his sense of defeat.

It was Garlicke who opened the conversation, and from a sporting point of view. He is a sort of sans appel on the subject of weapons of the chase, being a noted man at the running deer and such-like competitions, as well as a keen game shot. He demonstrated that the sporting Männlicher rifle was the instrument marked out for the destruction of the Monster, giving his reasons for supposing that its bullet would penetrate any hide, provided that the missile had a hollow point. He regretted intensely that he had not had one of these useful implements at hand during the late rencontre.

Then the babble joined upon this issue and others flowing from it, and we felt our nerves grow back to us with our words, each of us expressing the opinion that to the determined man, armed with modern weapons, Dinosaurs were not necessarily invulnerable, and each asking, on reflection, no better than to beard the Beast again in his lair with suitable arms.

In which wordy tournament Lessaution, as was to be expected, rode triumphant down the lists, being willing, so he assured us, to compete with the Great Atrocity, equipped with no more than his native intelligence and a squirt.