us, Woola had no difficulty in making a square
meal after I had brought down the viands for him. Then, having
eaten, too, I lay down with my back to that of my faithful hound,
and dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The forest was shrouded in impenetrable darkness when a low growl
from Woola awakened me. All about us I could hear the stealthy
movement of great, padded feet, and now and then the wicked gleam
of green eyes upon us. Arising, I drew my long-sword and waited.

Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throat
almost at my side. What a fool I had been not to have found safer
lodgings for myself and Woola among the branches of one of the
countless trees that surrounded us!

By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoisted
Woola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. There
was nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine,
though, from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and
for which that first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged
that we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
the fierce, man-eating denizens of the Kaolian jungle.

All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, but
why they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to this
day, unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patches
of scarlet sward which dot the swamp.

When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in
a circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more
terrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it
would be difficult to imagine.

Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle
shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woola
and I resumed our journey.

Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the
day; but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and
when they saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the
solid sod.

Toward noon we stumbled upon a well-constructed road running
in the general direction we had been pursuing. Everything about
this highway marked it as the work of skilled engineers, and I was
confident, from the indications of antiquity which it bore, as well
as from the very evident signs of its being still in everyday use,
that it must lead to one of the principal cities of Kaol.

Just as we entered it from one side a huge monster emerged from
the