e. We had each bandoliers of cartridges.

"Now, Challenger, if you really insist upon being the first man in,"
said Lord John, when every preparation was complete.

"I am much indebted to you for your gracious permission," said the
angry Professor; for never was a man so intolerant of every form of
authority. "Since you are good enough to allow it, I shall most
certainly take it upon myself to act as pioneer upon this occasion."

Seating himself with a leg overhanging the abyss on each side, and his
hatchet slung upon his back, Challenger hopped his way across the trunk
and was soon at the other side. He clambered up and waved his arms in
the air.

"At last!" he cried; "at last!"

I gazed anxiously at him, with a vague expectation that some terrible
fate would dart at him from the curtain of green behind him. But all
was quiet, save that a strange, many-colored bird flew up from under
his feet and vanished among the trees.

Summerlee was the second. His wiry energy is wonderful in so frail a
frame. He insisted upon having two rifles slung upon his back, so that
both Professors were armed when he had made his transit. I came next,
and tried hard not to look down into the horrible gulf over which I was
passing. Summerlee held out the butt-end of his rifle, and an instant
later I was able to grasp his hand. As to Lord John, he walked
across--actually walked without support! He must have nerves of iron.

And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world,
of Maple White. To all of us it seemed the moment of our supreme
triumph. Who could have guessed that it was the prelude to our supreme
disaster? Let me say in a few words how the crushing blow fell upon us.

We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards
of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from
behind us. With one impulse we rushed back the way that we had come.
The bridge was gone!

Far down at the base of the cliff I saw, as I looked over, a tangled
mass of branches and splintered trunk. It was our beech tree. Had the
edge of the platform crumbled and let it through? For a moment this
explanation was in all our minds. The next, from the farther side of
the rocky pinnacle before us a swarthy face, the face of Gomez the
half-breed, was slowly protruded. Yes, it was Gomez, but no longer the
Gomez of the demure smile and the mask-like expression. Here was a
face with flashing