ed his huge head
he at length became reconciled to the change, and at my command
trotted off along the corridor in the direction we had been going
when our progress had been interrupted by the therns.

We moved cautiously now, warned by the fragment of conversation
I had overheard. I kept abreast of Woola that we might have the
benefit of all our eyes for what might appear suddenly ahead to
menace us, and well it was that we were forewarned.

At the bottom of a flight of narrow steps the corridor turned sharply
back upon itself, immediately making another turn in the original
direction, so that at that point it formed a perfect letter S,
the top leg of which debouched suddenly into a large chamber, illy
lighted, and the floor of which was completely covered by venomous
snakes and loathsome reptiles.

To have attempted to cross that floor would have been to court
instant death, and for a moment I was almost completely discouraged.
Then it occurred to me that Thurid and Matai Shang with their party
must have crossed it, and so there was a way.

Had it not been for the fortunate accident by which I overheard
even so small a portion of the therns' conversation we should
have blundered at least a step or two into that wriggling mass of
destruction, and a single step would have been all-sufficient to
have sealed our doom.

These were the only reptiles I had ever seen upon Barsoom, but I
knew from their similarity to the fossilized remains of supposedly
extinct species I had seen in the museums of Helium that they
comprised many of the known prehistoric reptilian genera, as well
as others undiscovered.

A more hideous aggregation of monsters had never before assailed my
vision. It would be futile to attempt to describe them to Earth
men, since substance is the only thing which they possess in
common with any creature of the past or present with which you are
familiar--even their venom is of an unearthly virulence that, by
comparison, would make the cobra de capello seem quite as harmless
as an angleworm.

As they spied me there was a concerted rush by those nearest the
entrance where we stood, but a line of radium bulbs inset along the
threshold of their chamber brought them to a sudden halt--evidently
they dared not cross that line of light.

I had been quite sure that they would not venture beyond the room
in which I had discovered them, though I had not guessed at what
deterred them. The simple fact that we h