ed its enormous bulk, then commenced to leap forward at
tremendous speed, clearing fifteen or twenty feet with each jump and
uttering a curious, whistling scream as it bore down, a terrifying
vision of gleaming teeth and talons.

Shaking off the paralysis of despair, Nelson whipped up the Winchester
and, as before, sighted squarely between those blazing, gemlike eyes.
When the huge monster was but twenty feet away he fired, and the
report thundered and banged in the cavern like the crash of a summer
storm. In mid-air the ghastly carnivore teemed to stagger. Its tail
twitched sharply as in an effort to recover its balance. Then, quite
like any normal creature that is shot through the head, it lost all
sense of direction and made great convulsive leaps, around and around,
clawing madly at the air, bumping into the rock walls and uttering
soul-shaking shrieks of agony. Like a gargoyle gone mad it reeled back
towards the startled rank of spearmen. As it came, Nelson saw the
second allosaurus rear itself backwards and, balanced on its tail,
strike out with powerful hind legs as its maddened fellow drew near.

Like razors the great talons ripped through the dying allosaurus'
belly, exposing the gray-red intestines as the stricken creature raced
by, snapping crazily at the empty air.

A single mighty sweep of the monster's tail crushed five or six of the
panic-stricken keepers and guards, strewing them like broken and
abandoned marionettes among the stones. Hissing and obviously
terrified, the second dinosaur watched the dying struggles of its
mate; then, obedient to a terrified shout from its keepers, wheeled
about to join in a frantic rout of the spearmen, who, casting aside
shield, spear and brass coil, fled for dear life in the direction of
those invisible passages through which they had appeared.

CHAPTER II

No less amazed and alarmed than those vanished soldiers, Nelson
remained rooted to the ground, conscious that in the swallow's nest
overhead there remained only the officer--a tall, broad shouldered man
with golden beard showing from under the cheek pieces of his helmet.
Across the body of the still writhing monster their glances met.
Nelson could see by the light of those strange pillars of fire that
the other's eyes were blue as any Norseman's. Leaning far out over the
stone parapet the other stared down upon the aviator from the depths
of his jewelled helmet in a strange mixture of curiosity and awe.

Sud