then I heard the
rattle of the stones as the creature tore down into its burrow. In an
instant, with a triumphant revulsion of feeling, I had cast my fears to
the wind, and uncovering my powerful lantern, with my rifle in my hand,
I sprang down from my rock and rushed after the monster down the old
Roman shaft.

My splendid lamp cast a brilliant flood of vivid light in front of me,
very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me down the
same passage only twelve days before. As I ran, I saw the great beast
lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from
wall to wall. Its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down
in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved. It was like an enormous
unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the
largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its
height. It fills me with amazement now to think that I should have dared
to follow such a horror into the bowels of the earth, but when one's
blood is up, and when one's quarry seems to be flying, the old primeval
hunting-spirit awakes and prudence is cast to the wind. Rifle in hand, I
ran at the top of my speed upon the trail of the monster.

I had seen that the creature was swift. Now I was to find out to my
cost that it was also very cunning. I had imagined that it was in panic
flight, and that I had only to pursue it. The idea that it might turn
upon me never entered my excited brain. I have already explained that
the passage down which I was racing opened into a great central cave.
Into this I rushed, fearful lest I should lose all trace of the beast.
But he had turned upon his own traces, and in a moment we were face to
face.

That picture, seen in the brilliant white light of the lantern, is
etched for ever upon my brain. He had reared up on his hind legs as a
bear would do, and stood above me, enormous, menacing--such a creature
as no nightmare had ever brought to my imagination. I have said that
he reared like a bear, and there was something bear-like--if one could
conceive a bear which was ten-fold the bulk of any bear seen upon
earth--in his whole pose and attitude, in his great crooked forelegs
with their ivory-white claws, in his rugged skin, and in his red, gaping
mouth, fringed with monstrous fangs. Only in one point did he differ
from the bear, or from any other creature which walks the earth, and
even at that supreme moment a shudder of horr