the girl, and the talons of its drooping feet caught
in her dress. She made one desperate, but futile effort to free herself
from its terrible clutch, and, screaming loudly for help, was borne away
over the abyss of the valley as easily as a lamb is carried by an eagle.

"Oh, Heaven!" cried Gazen, stopping with a gesture of despair.

He was deeply moved, and pale as death; but he did not altogether lose
his head.

What was to be done?

"The car--the car!" he exclaimed. "We must follow her in the car. Keep
your eye on the beast while I go for it."

Carmichael was fast asleep in his cabin, after his long weary vigil
during the passage from Venus, but the car was quickly put in motion,
and I jumped on board just as it cleared the brink of the precipice.

The dragon, which had the start of us by a mile or more, was apparently
steering for the mountains on the other side of the valley.
Notwithstanding its enormous bulk, and the dead weight hanging from its
claws, it flew with surprising speed, owing to the weakness of gravity
and the vast spread of its wings.

I shall never forget that singular chase, which is probably unparalleled
in the history of the universe. A prey to anxiety and the most
distressing emotions, we did not properly observe the marvellous, the
Titanic, I had almost said the diabolical aspect of the country beneath
us, and still we could not altogether blind ourselves to it. Colossal
jungles, resembling brakes of moss and canes five hundred or a thousand
feet in height--creeks as black as porter, gliding under their dank and
rotting aisles--mountainous quadrupeds or lizards crashing and tearing
through their branches--one of them at least six hundred feet in length,
with a ridgy back and long spiky tail, dragging on the ground, a baleful
green eye, and a crooked mouth full of horrid fangs, which made it look
the very incarnation of cruelty and brute strength--black lakes and
grisly reeds as high as bamboo--prodigious black serpents troubling the
water, and rearing their long spiry necks above the surface--gigantic
alligators and crocodiles resting motionless in the shallows, with their
snouts high in the air--hideous toads or such-like forbidding reptiles,
many with tusks like the walrus, and some with glorious eyes, crouching
on the banks or waddling in the reeds, and so enormous as to give
variety to the landscape--volcanic craters, with red-hot lava simmering
in their depths, and emitting fumes o