He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I have never seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered and jibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chattering teeth.
“Why, Chee-Chee!” said the Doctor. “What is it?—What’s wrong?”
“Look!”—was all he finally managed to gulp.
He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of the cliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vines for convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visible in the yellow sand of the pool’s beach two enormous foot-prints such as we had seen by the shores of the lake.
“The Moon Man!” the Doctor whispered.—“Well, I was sure of it—that these vines had spoken with a man before. I wonder—”
“Sh!” Polynesia interrupted. “Don’t let them see you looking. But when you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of the gulch.”
Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with our business of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratching my ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There I saw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among the leaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.
As we turned back to our work an enormous shadow passed over us, shutting off the light of the sun. We looked up, fearing as any one would, some attack or danger from the air. Slowly a giant moth of the same kind that had brought us to this mysterious world sailed across the heavens and disappeared.
“There was no doubt that they were on the watch”