His bound carried him part way up the opposite side, but almost immediately he started slipping back again into the center. This time, however, instead of merely striving to scale the unstable walls, he ran in a circle, round and round the flashing jaws.
As he increased his speed, his centrifugal acceleration, like that of a horse-chestnut which a small boy whirls on a string, gradually forced him outward and upward, thus offsetting to a large extent the sliding action of the sand.
But the beast at the bottom, evidently tiring of snapping aimlessly in the air while its prey circled about it and showered it with dirt, began to dig itself out.
Just then Myles espied a branch or root protruding from the bank just above the level of his head. With one last spurt, he leaped in the air and grasped the branch. For a moment he hung swaying beneath it. It held, and did not become dislodged from the bank. So gradually he hauled himself up, until finally he sat upon it.
The top of the bank was still too far away to reach, so for the present Myles just clung to his perch and panted. Great agonized sobs shook his frame. But at last he regained his breath, and then coughed and spat for a while until his aching lungs felt somewhat better.
Meanwhile the ant-bear, if such it was, slowly emerged from its place of burial. The beast was about thirty-five feet in length and resembled a huge beetle, except that its six legs were all nearer to the head than in a beetle, thus giving it more the effect of a gigantic louse. With its ten-foot-long razor-sharp mandibles clicking hungrily, it slowly approached its prisoner, who watched it fascinated.
A slight noise across the pit-mouth momentarily diverted Cabot’s attention, and looking up he saw a Formian standing at the edge with a rifle in its two front paws.
Evidently this new enemy had seen him from the road and had come over to enjoy the spectacle of the final destruction of the arch-nemesis of its race. And if by any chance Myles should escape from the enemy below, the enemy above stood ready to polish him off with a rifle-shot. A pleasant situation indeed!
Meanwhile the ant bear continued its slow but steady approach. And Cabot’s revolver lay useless beside his drying toga at the edge of the plain.