"I--I cannot forget the white
snakes which slid from that tree when you tried to cut firewood."

"Hush," Kirby murmured again. "Presently the moon will rise on the earth
above, and light will come here. Even if the jungle is terrible, were
you not born with courage? Go to sleep now, both of you, because you
must relieve me soon."

As silence fell again, he knew that the real thing behind their
nervousness was their ghastly doubt about what the night was bringing to
Naida. But none of them spoke of Naida. So sickening were the
possibilities that Kirby would not permit conjecture to occupy even his
mind when, at length, the sound of even breathing told him that Nini and
Ivana slept.

After dreary passing of an hour, a faint light grew over the jungle,
silver and clear, and Kirby let his mind run back to the two deserted
ape-men communities which they had found and searched before dusk sent
them to the cave. From the signs of hasty departure, it looked as though
a far-reaching order had taken the brutes away from their dwellings, and
sent them--somewhere.

That somewhere seemed likely to be the great central community which
Ivana said was rumored to exist in the far reaches of the Rorroh. The
problem was how to locate the community through the hideous country. But
Kirby presently drove the question from his head. To-morrow's evils
could best be faced when morrow dawned.

* * * * *

Enough light had grown now so that the swirling bosom of the river, and
a strip of sand directly below the cliff in which their cave was set,
were visible. As Kirby let his eyes wander to the lush growth beyond the
sand, he heard something which made him stir uneasily. Some creature
which suggested power and hugeness immeasurable was moving there.

The brush parted, and he saw plainly an animal with the bulk of a
two-story house. On two feet the nightmare thing stood, as lightly as a
cat, and then came down on all four feet as it ambled out on the sand
and extended into the lapping river a tremendous beak studded with
teeth. A smell of crushed weeds and the musty odor like that of a lion
house filled the night. The tyranosaur--it was more like a tyranosaur
than anything else--breathed heavily and guzzled in great mouthfuls of
water.

Kirby sat perfectly still. He hoped the thing would go away. But the
tyranosaur did not go away. All at once it hissed loudly and stood up,
its eyes glowing green and balefu