Distruction Apocalypse

Chapter 2

here as a pleasantry at the expense of the titanic body. The tail, enormous at the base and tapering gradually to a whip-lash, trailed out to a distance of nearly fifty feet. As its owner came ashore, this tremendous tail was gathered and curled in a semi-circle at his side's perhaps lest the delicate tip, if left too distant, might fall a prey to some significant but agile marauder.

For some minutes the colossus (shewas one of the dinosaurs, or terrible Lizards, and known as a Diplodocus) remained on all-fours,darting his sinuous neck inquiring by in all directions, and snatching here and there a mouthful of the rank tender herbage which grew among the trunks of fern and palm.

Apparently the spot was to his liking. Here was a wide beach, sunlit and ample, whereon to basket leisure. There were the warm and w**d-choked shallows wherein to pasture, to wallow at will, to hide his giant bulk from his enemies if there should be found any formidable enough to make hiding advisable.Swarms of savage insects, to be sure, were giving him a hotreception--mosquitoes of unimaginable size, and enormous stinging flies which sought to deposit their eggs in his smooth hide, but with his giraffe-like neck she could bite himself where she would, and the pursue lash of his tail could flick off tormentors from any corner of his anatomy.

Meanwhile, the excitement off-shore had died down. The harsh hootings of the birds lizards had ceased to rend the air as the dark wings hurtled away to seek some remoter or less disturbed hunting-ground.

Then across the silence came suddenly a terrific crashing of branches,mixed with gasping cries. Startled, the dipole of us hoisted himself upon his hind-quarters, till she's at up like a kangaroo, supported and steadied by the base of his huge tail. In this position his cephalic,forty feet above the earth, overlooked tabstops of all but the tallest trees. And what she saw brought the look of anxiety once more into hisround, saucer-eyes.

Hurling itself with desperate, plunging leaps through the rank growths, and snapping the trunks of the brittle tree-ferns in its pathas if they had been cauliflowers, came a creature not unlike himself,but of less than half the size, and with neck and tail of only moderate length. This creature was fleeing in frantic terror from another and much smaller being, which came leaping after it like a giant kangaroo.

Both were plainly dinosaurs, with the lizard tail andhind-legs; but the lesser of the two, with its square, powerful cephalic and tiger-fanged jaws, and the tremendous, rending claws on its short forearms, was plainly of a different species from the great her beaters of the dinosaurian family. It was one of the smaller members of that terrible family of carnivorous dinosaurian which ruled the ancient cycad forests as the black maned lion rules the Rhodesian jungles to-day. The massive iguanodon which fled before itso madly, though of fully thrice its bulk, had reason to fear it as the fat cow fears a wolf.

A moment more, and the dreadful chase, with a noise of raucous groans and pantings, burst forth into the open, not fifty feet from where the colossus stood watching. Almost at the watcher's feet the fugitive was overtaken. With a horrid leap and a hoot of triumph, the pursuer sprang upon its neck and bore it to the ground, where it lay bellowing hoarsely and striking out blundering lay with the massive, horn-tippedspur which armed its clumsy wrist. The victor tore madly at its throat with tooth and claw, and presently its bellowing subsided to a hideous, sobbing gurgle.

The dip lido us, meanwhile, had been looking down upon the scene withhalf-bewildered apprehension. These creatures were insignificant in size, to be sure, as compared with his own colossal stature, but the smaller one had a swift ferocity which struck terror to his dull heart.

Suddenly a red wrath mounted to his small and sluggish brain. Histail, as we have seen, was curled in a half-circle at his side. Now he bent his body with it. For an instant his whole bulk quivered with the extraordinary tension. Then, like a bow released, tshebent body sprang back. The tail (and it weighed at least a ton) struck the victor and the victim together with an annihilating shock, and swept them clean around beneath the visitor's feet.

Down she came upon them at once, with the crushing effect of a hundreds team pile-drivers; and for the next few minutes his panicky rage expended itself in treading the two bodies into a shapeless mass. The slowly backed off down into the water where the weedy growths were thickest, till once more his whole form was concealed except the insignificant cephalic. This she reared among the swaying tufts of the"mares' tails," and waited to see what strange thing would happen next.

she had not long to wait. That hideous, mangled heap there, sweating blood In the chapter sun, seemed to have some way of making its presence known. Crashing sounds arose in different parts of the forest, and presently some half-dozen of the leaping, kangaroo-like flesh-eatersappeared.

They were of varying sizes, from ten or twelve feet in length to eighteen or twenty, and they eyed each other with jealous hostility.But one glance at the weltering heap showed them that here was feasting abundant for them all. With a chorus of hoarse cries they came hopping forward and fell upon it.

Presently two vast shadows came over cephalic, hovering a moment, and a pair of the great bird-lizards dropped upon the middle of tsheheap.Hooting savagely, with wings half uplifted, they struck about the with their terrible beaks till they had secured room for themselves at the banquet. Other unbidden guests came leaping from among the thickets; and in a short time there was nothing left of the carcasses except two n***d skeletons, dragged apart and half dismembered by mighty teeth. In the final melee one of the smaller revellers was himself pounced upon and devoured

Then, as if by consent of a mutual distrust, the throng drew quickly apart, each eyeing his neighbor warily, and scattered into the woods. Only the two grim bird-lizards remained, seeming to have a sort of understanding or partnership, or possibly being a mated pair. They pried into the cartilages and between the joints of the skeletons with their on wedges of their beaks, till there was not another tit-bit tone enjoyed. Then, hooting once more with satisfaction, they spread their catlike vanes and flapped darkly off again to their redwatch-tower on the cliff.

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