“Yes. Oh, what an opportunity! What an enlightenment to science! To no observer has it been given since the beginning of the race. May I trouble you for a pencil?”
“Then it was this creature,” said Dick, “that killed Petersen the sailor, and the sheep. It fouled Ely’s kites and snapped the strong cord as if with scissors. It impaled Ely on its beak, carried him aloft and shook him to earth again. It made the footprints which Whalley-”
“Eet will come back!” shrieked the little juggler, who had been speechless with terror. “Eet will kill you all! Zat is not matter. But her! Eet shall not kill her while I leef! Eet see ze kite man, an’ I see it come down, an’ I run. See! Ze moon!”
From behind the clouds the moon moved again, and now they saw the reptile swaying back toward them. Of a sudden it uttered a harsh, grating sound and passed.
“That is what I heard just before my horse bucked,” said Everard.
“Raucous—metallic,” said the professor in rapt tones. “Sounded twice—or was it three times?” He looked up from his notes, questioning the group.
Again the hideous sound was borne to their ears as the monster whirled and soared downward, in a long slanting line.
“It has sighted us!” said Dick. “Dolly! Helga! Run for the gully. Find what cover you can. Ev, go with them.”
Helga reached out her hand. “Come, Dolly,” she said.
For one moment the girl hesitated. Then, with a little wail of love and dread, she leaped to Dick and clung close to him, pressing her lips upon his.