An instant later the licentious carousal was become wildest terror. The forest was alive with frightful reptiles—gigantic, stupendous things that passed the extent of all imagination. Down they swooped upon their terrified prey, their enormous, slippery bodies undulating in great writhing leaps.
The horde of unearthly Things, disporting in hellish debauchery a moment before, were swiftly swallowed up by the serpents. Left in possession of the swamp, they flopped about venomously for a time, demolishing and laying waste all about them.
They then fell upon one another in unspeakable combat, wriggling and squirming slimily together, their repulsive, green-black lengths intertwined like enormous angle worms. And they killed and devoured each other, until at last there was left but one hideous, swollen monster.
It leaped and dashed about, lashing its great tail furiously, tearing down giant trees as though they were weeds. And as the young man watched, the incredible thing seemed to swell larger and larger. And then he saw it stop suddenly in its Brobdingnagian gambol and rigidly poise its hideous head. And he looked straight into its horrifying eyes!
They were fixed steadily upon him. But a moment it staid thus; then its head dropped, and he saw its mammoth body undulating swiftly toward him through the swamp.
He strove to cry out, but could utter no sound. He tried to move, but his body was as lead.
On came the thing with frightful rapidity; parts of its writhing length now sinking in the quagmire, now towering high above it. Now he could see that massive head swinging from side to side. Now only a dark, slimy greenish mass, describing an arch above the swamp, showed its location.
Now it was close upon him. Its vast head swooped up a scant distance away. Its fulsome eyes blazed upon him with a furious fire. Its great drooping jaws swung open. They bristled with venomous fangs.
The monster gathered itself in a dozen gigantic coils and lept through the air—
“GOD!” he shrieked.