Beyond the Great South Wall: The Secret of the Antarctic

by Frank Savile

“Garlicke will be distracting the brute’s attention directly with that Männlicher rifle,” said I. “I happen to know he took it up with him when we moved camp, for use in just such a possibility as this. He’ll be trying the effect of the bullet with the top bitten off,” I added to keep the light side of the question uppermost, though it was a watery sort of sprightliness at the best.

From the edge above, where the weight of the great body was pressing, a lump of granite fell, and splashed into splinters in the narrows of the gulf. It widened the mouth of the fissure by a foot or more. The horrible trunk surged forward a yard or two, and one of the huge legs, dropping from between the belly and the rock, slid into the opening. The five white claws waggled and gripped at empty space, and the gloom in the cave increased. Fidget was beyond barking now, and backed against the uttermost crevices with a sort of bleating gasp. I think that never have I seen unadulterated terror more plainly expressed on an animal’s features.

With the increased room for the body, the long sinuous neck came forward a like space. The thin snout was now fairly in the cavern. The nauseous breath hissed at us in gusts—sickening as a plague wind.

Suddenly the lithe neck stiffened. The evil eyes concentrated their gaze upon Gwen. Their stare seemed to go past my cheek with the searing directness of a flash-light. In an instant the memory of the power that lay in that wicked glare came back to me.

I dashed forward and clapped my palms upon Gwen’s face, calling to her wildly to close her eyes. I gathered her to my bosom—and oh, the ecstasy of it, even in that desperate stress—and stammered incoherently of the fatal trap that lay in that unwinking gaze. She was content enough to bury her face in the folds of my loose jacket, and thus for a moment we stood shuddering. Fidget crept and fawned shiveringly about Gwen’s skirts.

I kicked my foot against an object on the floor. It was the tin of mustard Gwen had been carrying when she started on that mad race down the boulders. It was new and shining, just out of store. I held it before my face to look at the reflection therein.

Finding his efforts unavailing, the Monster was drawing his head back into the outer part of the cave, relaxing his tense glare. We turned to face him. He curved his neck into a half-circle, his great throat muscles working with swallowings. Then with a sudden dart he flung it out upon us, gaping wide his mouth.

With a rasp and a roar his breath burst upon us, and upon the wall of rock at our back, hissing stridently like a gale through taut rigging. It beat us back almost irresistibly in the return draught, thrusting us out from the back of the cave toward his waiting lips. For one desperate moment we swayed in that noisome gust, and my free arm—for one still encircled Gwen’s waist—whirled in the air frantically as I braced myself to meet it. But as its first strength died down I flung myself with Gwen upon the ground, and grasping at a ledge hung on with despair’s own grip.

In the case of Fidget the Monster’s wile defeated his object. The back-swirl of his breath whisked the little dog like a leaf past the lowering head and on into the outer cleft. With a sound half bark, half squeal, she leaped upon the unwieldy body before the neck could coil itself out of the inner cave. We heard her yapping pass swiftly out among the boulders, and die away up the empty lake-side.

There was the thud of a bullet on the thick hide, and the crack of a rifle followed smartly on the shot. A flake or scale of parchmenty skin floated past the cave mouth, and rustled slowly into the depths below; not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did the brute show that he had felt anything. Another shot followed, with the same result. They clattered on—above a score of them—but they worried him no more than the buzzings of mosquitoes. Finally one must have hit a wart-like excrescence on his shoulder. A lump about the size of my fist fell with a flop upon the stones, glanced ruddily for a second, and bounced on into the depths below. But it left a tell-tale smear upon the granite, and scarlet drops trickled down the hanging neck, dripping in a small pool at the threshold of the cave. Yet the Monster lay unheeding, and we began to gasp with the unutterable murkiness of his breathing, which filled the air.