With this he adjusted his cavern lamp, and darted forward. The moment he left the light of day and looked downward he saw that the floor of the cavern was slightly sandy. Soon he discovered evidence of gigantic bodies having been dragged through the sandy soil. Examination disclosed the fact that they had been made by lizard-shaped ramphs over a hundred feet long with six feet on each side of their bodies.
When Epworth and Joan saw the imprint of these feet cold chills passed down their backs. Very likely there were thousands of these Things ahead of them, and every time they thought of the fight they had had with one of the Things near the cricket home Epworth shook with fear, and Joan thought that her mind would be shattered.
Nevertheless they marched bravely into the hole in the moon.
Onward, climbing steadily upward, hour after hour, moving like silent shadows in order that their presence might not be betrayed, the Selinites marched with Epworth, Joan, Billy, and Queen Moawha at their head. They traveled with their chloroform guns in their hands, and their eyes straining ahead, the way being given additional light by strong electric flash lights. The danger Epworth was aware would not have been as great if he had had room to spread out his army but the corridor was so narrow in places that he could march his men only a hundred abreast.
They had been climbing upward fifteen hours, pushing earnestly ahead, when they were warned that they were approaching something by a noisome smell that came to their nostrils. Joan was the first to get the scent, and she stopped with a shudder.
“I know now what that smell means,” she whispered in a frightened voice, “and I can also feel the invisible movement of the Things ahead. They are preparing for us.”
The idea that innumerable great and mysterious monsters were preparing to do battle against them caused Epworth and Billy to pause also and shoot their flash lights far ahead.
“There is something uncanny, terrifying, unnatural, inhuman about the Things,” Epworth answered. “I feel as if I were going forth to battle with gigantic spiritual monsters of evil. They move so swiftly, so silently. They are on you before you know it.”
Billy’s teeth chattered, and Joan trembled violently. The horrors of that dark underground world were upon them notwithstanding the fact that they were backed by a splendid army.