Distruction Apocalypse

The worry in the large eyes was not without reason, for their owner had just arrived in the tepid and teeming liquids of this cove, and the creatures which he had already seen about him were both unknown and menacing. But the inshore shallows were full of liquid-weeds of a rankness and succulence far beyond anything he had enjoyed in his old habitat, and he was determined to secure himself a place here. As time had passed by, as some new creature came into discovery, the ungainly cephalic would shoot up amazingly to a distance of five or ten, or even fifteen feet, on a swaying pillar of a neck, in order to get a better view of the stranger. Then it would slowly sink back again to it's repose on the liquid. The Liquid by the riverside at this point was almost clean, because the cove, thoughtfully two miles wide, was filled with the tide of the great river rolling slowly down from the heart of the continent. The further shore was so flat that nothing could be seen of it but an endless, pale green forest of giant reeds. But the nearer shore was skirted, at a distance of perhaps half a mile from the liquid, by a rampart of abrupt, bright, rust-red cliffs. The flat land between the liquid side and the cliffs, except for the wide strip of beach, was clothed with an enormous and riotous growth of calamaries, tree-ferns, cane and palm, which rocked and crashed in places as if some colossal wayfarers were pushing through them. Here and there along the edge of the cliffs sat tall beings with prodigious, saw-toothed beaks, like some species of bird conceived in a nightmare. Deep across the liquid, one of these creatures was flapping slowly in from the sea. Its feathers--eighteen feet across from tip to tip--werenot the feathers of a bird, but of a bat or a hobgoblin. It had dreadful,hand-like claws on its feather-elbows; and its feet were those of a lizard. As this startling shape came flapping shoreward, the cephalic afloat upon the liquid eyed it with interest, but not, as it seemed, with any great apprehension. Yet it certainly looked formidable enough to excite misgivings in most creatures. Its flight was not the steady, even feathering of a bird, but spasmodic and violent. It came on at a height of perhaps twenty feet above the sluggish tide, and its immense,circular eyes appeared to take no notice of the strange cephalic that watched it from the liquid's surface. It seemed about to pass a little to one side, when suddenly, with a hoarse, hooting cry, it swerved and swooped, and struck at the floating cephalic with open jaws. Swift as was that unexpected attack, the assailant struck nothing but a spot of foam where the cephalic had disappeared. Simultaneously with the lightning disappearance, there was a sudden boiling of the liquid someeighty-odd feet away. But the great bird-lizard was either too furious to notice this phenomenon or not sagacious enough to interpret it.Flopping into the air again, and gnashing his beak-like jaws with rage, he kept circling about the spot in heavy zigzags, expecting the harmless looking cephalic to reappear. Altogether he was as shocked his dreams were more than realized. The cephalic not only reappeared, but on a towering leather-colored column of a neck it shot straight into the air to a height of twenty feet. The bright, placid eyes were now sparkling with anger. The flat, shovel jaws were gaping open. They seized the swooping foe by the root of the tail, and, inspite of screeches and wild flappings, plucked him down backwards. At the surface of the liquid there was a convulsive struggle, and the wide feathers were drawn clean under. For several minutes the liquid seethed and foamed, and little waves ran clattering up the beach, while the owner of the harmless-looking cephalictrod his assailant down and crushed him among the weeds of the bottom.Then the foam slowly crimsoned, and the mauled, battered body of the great bird-lizard came up again; for the owner of the mysterious cephalic was a feeder on delicate weeds and succulent green-stuff only, and would eat no blood-bearing food. The body was still struggling, and the vast, dark, broken feathers spread themselves in feeble spasms on the surface. But they were not left to struggle long. The liquid, in the distance, had been full of eager spectators of the fight, and now it boiled as they rushed in upon the disabled prey. Ravenous, cavern-jawed, fishlike beasts, half-porpoise,half-alligator, swarmed upon the victim, tearing at it and at each other. Some bore off trailing mouthfuls of dark feather-membrane,others more substantial booty, while the rest fought madly in the vortex of discolored foam. At the beginning of the fray the grim figures perched along the red ramparts of the cliff had shown signs of excitement, lifting their high shoulders and half unfolding the stiff drapery of their feathers. As they saw their fellow overwhelmed they launched themselves from their perch and came hooting hoarsely over the rank, green tops of the palms and feathery calamaries. Swooping and circling they gathered over the hideous final struggle, and from time to time one or another would drop perpendicularly downward to stab the crown or the face of one of the preoccupied fish-beasts with his trenchant beak. Such of thefish-beasts as were thus disabled were promptly torn to pieces and devoured by their companions. Some fifty feet away, nearer shore, the harmless-looking cephalic which had been the source and inspirer of all this b****y turmoil lay watching the scene with discontent in its round, wondering eyes.Slowly it reared itself once more to a height of eight or ten feet above the liquid, as if for better inspection of the combat. Then, as if not relishing the neighborhood of the fish-beasts, it slowly sank again and disappeared. Immediately a heavy swirling, a disturbance that stretched over a distance of nearly a hundred feet, began to travel shoreward. It grew heavier and heavier as the liquid grew shallower. Then aleather-colored mountain of a back heaved itself up through the smother and a colossal form, that would make the hugest elephant a pigmy, came ponderously forth upon the beach. The body of this amazing being was thrice or four times the bulk ofthe mightiest elephant. It stood highest--a good thirteen feet--overthe haunches (which were supported on legs like columns), and slopedabruptly to the lower and lighter-built fore-shoulders. The neck waslike a giraffe's, but over twenty feet in length to its juncture with the mild little cephalic, which looked as if Nature had set it t