there
were scattered certain large masses of rock about this part of the hill,
and these held off both the light of the moon, and that from the fires.
Here, I came abruptly upon three great shapes moving with stealthiness
towards the camp, and, behind these, I saw dimly that there were others.
Then, with a loud cry for help, I made at the three, and, as I charged,
they rose up on end at me, and I found that they overtopped me, and their
vile tentacles were reached out at me. Then I was smiting, and gasping,
sick with a sudden stench, the stench of the creatures which I had come
already to know. And then something clutched at me, something slimy and
vile, and great mandibles champed in my face; but I stabbed upward, and
the thing fell from me, leaving me dazed and sick, and smiting weakly.
Then there came a rush of feet behind, and a sudden blaze, and the bo'sun
crying out encouragement, and, directly, he and the big seaman thrust
themselves in front of me, hurling from them great masses of burning
weed, which they had borne, each of them, up a long reed. And immediately
the things were gone, slithering hastily down over the cliff edge.

And so, presently, I was more my own man, and made to wipe from my throat
the slime left by the clutch of the monster: and afterwards I ran from
fire to fire with weed, feeding them, and so a space passed, during
which we had safety; for by that time we had fires all about the top of
the hill, and the monsters were in mortal dread of fire, else had we been
dead, all of us, that night.

Now, a while before the dawn, we discovered, for the second time since we
had been upon the island, that our fuel could not last us the night at
the rate at which we were compelled to burn it, and so the bo'sun told
the men to let out every second fire, and thus we staved off for a while
the time when we should have to face a spell of darkness, and the things
which, at present, the fires held off from us. And so at last, we came to
the end of the weed and the reeds, and the bo'sun called out to us to
watch the cliff edges very carefully, and smite on the instant that any
thing showed; but that, should he call, all were to gather by the central
fire for a last stand. And, after that, he blasted the moon which had
passed behind a great bank of cloud. And thus matters were, and the gloom
deepened as the fires sank lower and lower. Then I heard a man curse, on
that part of the hill which lay towards the weed-c