Then, suddenly the gruesome python shape, head down, began oozing over the brink beside it. Flowing mass of protoplasm. It thinned out as it sagged down the hundred-foot drop—thinned until it was a narrow ribbon—a blood-red rivulet of waterfall. Then it was all on the lower level, gathering itself together until in a moment it was a great congealed, quivering crimson ball with the head in the center. For another instant it pulsated; then it bumped and rolled down a ragged slope, reached a little patch of distant vegetation where we could dimly see it spreading itself thinly out.... Spread like a blood-red pool, quiescent, waiting.
With Taro and Tahn, Shorty and I climbed down the ragged little descent, joined Vivian and Blaine.
"He tried to save us," the white-faced Vivian murmured.
"Yes," I agreed. "We saw it."
We found his broken body in the cluster of rocks fifty feet away. He was still conscious but we thought he was dying. One of his arms hung limp. Blood was coming from a head wound. But his pallid face was trying to smile.
"My leg and arm," he mumbled. "Can't move them."
One of his legs undoubtedly was broken. As we told him that the monster had gone his gaze seemed only on Vivian.
"Thought it would kill you, Viv," he muttered. "Didn't want that." Then he fainted. He had been trying to get up on one elbow as Vivian knelt with an arm under his head. Then his eyes closed, and he sagged, went limp.
"We must stop that blood from his head," Tahn murmured. "And then try and get him into one of the tunnels."
Vivian jumped up. "Here's what we need—bandages." She flashed us a little twisted smile as she tore off her waist and skirt and ripped them into strips. "Here—bandages." She handed the strips of fabric to Tahn. Then she grinned at me. "This underdress—not too becoming, is it?" She gestured at the brief undergarment that now partly covered her, and her whimsical smile broadened. "Well this time, anyway, I had a good motive, didn't I?"