unto that side of the Gorge; and by the wideness and
ease of this swaying shall you perceive the utter greatness of the
Beast.

And alway, as it did come downward of the Gorge, it thrust the stalks of
the eyes inward among the boulders, looking all ways; and oft the breath
did come from it, as a cloud; and the stink to rise up unto us, very
plain and an abomination. And again, we saw the Beast set the tongue in
among the boulders of the Gorge bottom; and it lickt forth a snake that
did seem so thick as a man in the body, and the snake to thrash in the
great white tongue, and to be immediately drawn inward, and gone utter.

And surely, as the thought did stir in me, there did be a great Mercy
over us, in that we did not die by such a serpent in some dark and
horrid place of the Gorge. But yet, as it is like to be, mayhap the
snakes did be only anigh to the fire-holes; yet doth it be anywise a
wondrous thing that we had come so free of them alway; and truly to
learn, was to be given a new terror.

Now the Monster was come fully into the shining of the fire-pit, and was
upon this side; and the fire to make a shining against the side of the
Slug, so that odd whiles I did perceive very plain the huge wrinklings
and musclings of the skin, as the Beast made onward. And alway it did
search, thrusting in the eye-stalks among the boulders.

And sudden, it made pause, and did begin that it brought all the mighty
body together, and humpt itself, and brought the head-part round unto
the bottom of the cliff that made this side of the Gorge. And it
gathered itself, and afterward did lengthen upward against the cliff,
and begin to climb. And lo! I saw that the Beast did scent of us, and
made to come upward to destroy us.

And as the mighty hill of the body did come into length against the
great cliff-side, the Beast set the eye-stalks into this cave and that,
as it did go, and into all crannies; and so lengthened upward very
straight and monstrous and dreadful unto us, and did be as a white and
mildewed hill, that had an horrid life. And the stink to come up, so
that we did be like to lose our breath with the dreadfulness of it, as
you shall think.

And surely, for a moment, I looked unto the rocks upon the ledge, and
this way and that way, and upward unto the everlasting darkness that did
be above us, and again unto the great rock that did seem to quiver upon
the edge, as I have told. And I was grown utter desperate in a moment