Fancy Words

The hor­ror of the fol­lo­wing seconds is inde­scri­ba­ble. The Sagoth nea­rest the cave bear, fin­ding his escape blo­cked, tur­ned and leaped deli­bera­te­ly to an awful death upon the jag­ged rocks three hundred feet below. Then tho­se giant jaws rea­ched out and gathe­red in the next the­re was a sicke­ning sound of crus­hing bones, and the man­gled corp­se was drop­ped over the cliff’s edge. Nor did the migh­ty beast even pau­se in his ste­ady advan­ce along the ledge.
Shrie­king Sagoths were now lea­ping mad­ly over the pre­cipi­ce to escape him, and the last I saw he roun­ded the turn still pur­suing the demo­ra­li­zed rem­nant of the man hun­ters. For a long time I could hear the hor­rid roaring of the bru­te inter­mingled with the screams and shrieks of his vic­tims, until final­ly the awful sounds dwind­led and dis­ap­peared in the distance.
Later I lear­ned from Ghak, who had final­ly come to his tri­bes­men and retur­ned with a par­ty to res­cue me, that the ryth, as it is cal­led, pur­sued the Sagoths until it had exter­mi­na­ted the enti­re band. Ghak was, of cour­se, posi­ti­ve that I had fal­len prey to the ter­ri­ble crea­tu­re, which, within Pel­lu­ci­dar, is tru­ly the king of beasts.
Not caring to ven­ture back into the can­yon, whe­re I might fall prey eit­her to the cave bear or the Sagoths I con­tin­ued on along the ledge, belie­ving that by fol­lo­wing around the moun­tain I could reach the land of Sari from ano­ther direc­tion. But I evi­dent­ly beca­me con­fu­sed by the twis­ting and tur­ning of the can­yons and gul­lies, for I did not come to the land of Sari then, nor for a long time thereafter.
With no hea­ven­ly gui­de, it is litt­le won­der that I beca­me con­fu­sed and lost in the laby­rin­thi­ne maze of tho­se migh­ty hills. What, in rea­li­ty, I did was to pass enti­re­ly through them and come out abo­ve the val­ley upon the far­ther side. I know that I wan­de­red for a long time, until tired and hun­gry I came upon a small cave in the face of the lime­s­tone for­ma­ti­on which had taken the place of the gra­ni­te far­ther back.
The cave which took my fan­cy lay half­way up the pre­ci­pi­tous side of a lof­ty cliff. The way to it was such that I knew no extre­me­ly for­mi­da­ble beast could fre­quent it, nor was it lar­ge enough to make a com­for­ta­ble habi­tat for any but the smal­ler mammals or rep­ti­les. Yet it was with the utmost cau­ti­on that I craw­led within its dark interior.