Chapter 39 - Page 2

its foliage with New Zealand kauris.It was enough to distract the most ingenious classifier ofterrestrial botany.

Suddenly I halted. I drew back my uncle.

The diffused light revealed the smallest object in the dense anddistant thickets. I had thought I saw - no! I did see, with my owneyes, vast colossal forms moving amongst the trees. They weregigantic animals; it was a herd of mastodons - not fossil remains,but living and resembling those the bones of which were found in themarshes of Ohio in 1801. I saw those huge elephants whose long,flexible trunks were grouting and turning up the soil under the treeslike a legion of serpents. I could hear the crashing noise of theirlong ivory tusks boring into the old decaying trunks. The boughscracked, and the leaves torn away by cartloads went down thecavernous throats of the vast brutes.

So, then, the dream in which I had had a vision of the prehistoricworld, of the tertiary and post-tertiary periods, was now realised.And there we were alone, in the bowels of the earth, at the mercy ofits wild inhabitants!

My uncle was gazing with intense and eager interest.

"Come on!" said he, seizing my arm. "Forward! forward!"

"No, I will not!" I cried. "We have no firearms. What could we do inthe midst of a herd of these four-footed giants? Come away, uncle -come! No human being may with safety dare the anger of thesemonstrous beasts."

"No human creature?" replied my uncle in a lower voice. "You arewrong, Axel. Look, look down there! I fancy I see a living creaturesimilar to ourselves: it is a man!"

I looked, shaking my head incredulously. But though at first I wasunbelieving I had to yield to the evidence of my senses.

In fact, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, leaning against thetrunk of a gigantic kauri, stood a human being, the Proteus of thosesubterranean regions, a new son of Neptune, watching this countlessherd of mastodons.

Immanis pecoris custos, immanior ipse. [1]

[1] "The shepherd of gigantic herds, and huger still himself."

Yes, truly, huger still himself. It was no longer a fossil being likehim whose dried remains we had easily lifted up in the field ofbones; it was a giant, able to control those monsters. In stature hewas at least twelve feet high. His head, huge and unshapely as abuffalo's, was half hidden in the thick and tangled growth of hisunkempt hair. It most resembled the mane of the primitive elephant.In his hand he wielded with ease an enormous bough, a staff worthy ofthis shepherd of the geologic period.

We stood petrified and speechless with amazement. But he might seeus! We must fly!

"Come, do come!" I said to my uncle, who for once allowed himself tobe persuaded.

In another quarter of an hour our nimble heels had carried us beyondthe reach of this horrible monster.

And yet, now that I can reflect quietly, now that