along,
my boy, and let us see them nearer."

"No," replied I, restraining his efforts to drag me forward, "we are
wholly without arms. What should we do in the midst of that flock of
gigantic quadrupeds? Come away, Uncle, I implore you. No human creature
can with impunity brave the ferocious anger of these monsters."

"No human creature," said my uncle, suddenly lowering his voice to a
mysterious whisper, "you are mistaken, my dear Henry. Look! look yonder!
It seems to me that I behold a human being--a being like ourselves--a
man!"

I looked, shrugging my shoulders, decided to push incredulity to its
very last limits. But whatever might have been my wish, I was compelled
to yield to the weight of ocular demonstration.

Yes--not more than a quarter of a mile off, leaning against the trunk of
an enormous tree, was a human being--a Proteus of these subterranean
regions, a new son of Neptune keeping this innumerable herd of
mastodons.

Immanis pecoris custos, immanior ipse![5]

[5] The keeper of gigantic cattle, himself still more gigantic!

Yes--it was no longer a fossil whose corpse we had raised from the
ground in the great cemetery, but a giant capable of guiding and driving
these prodigious monsters. His height was above twelve feet. His head,
as big as the head of a buffalo, was lost in a mane of matted hair. It
was indeed a huge mane, like those which belonged to the elephants of
the earlier ages of the world.

In his hand was a branch of a tree, which served as a crook for this
antediluvian shepherd.

We remained profoundly still, speechless with surprise.

But we might at any moment be seen by him. Nothing remained for us but
instant flight.

"Come, come!" I cried, dragging my uncle along; and, for the first time,
he made no resistance to my wishes.

A quarter of an hour later we were far away from that terrible monster!

Now that I think of the matter calmly, and that I reflect upon it
dispassionately; now that months, years, have passed since this strange
and unnatural adventure befell us--what am I to think, what am I to
believe?

No, it is utterly impossible! Our ears must have deceived us, and our
eyes have cheated us! we have not seen what we believed we had seen. No
human being could by any possibility have existed in that subterranean
world! No generation of men could inhabit the lower caverns of the globe
without taking note of those who peopled the surface, without
communica