The creature was upon us now, and at the instant there seemed to
me a single slight chance for victory. If I could but remove the
terrible menace of certain death hidden in the poison sacs that
fed the sting the struggle would be less unequal.
At the thought I called to Woola to leap upon the creature's head
and hang there, and as his mighty jaws closed upon that fiendish
face, and glistening fangs buried themselves in the bone and
cartilage and lower part of one of the huge eyes, I dived beneath
the great body as the creature rose, dragging Woola from the ground,
that it might bring its sting beneath and pierce the body of the
thing hanging to its head.
To put myself in the path of that poison-laden lance was to court
instant death, but it was the only way; and as the thing shot
lightning-like toward me I swung my long-sword in a terrific cut
that severed the deadly member close to the gorgeously marked body.
Then, like a battering-ram, one of the powerful hind legs caught
me full in the chest and hurled me, half stunned and wholly winded,
clear across the broad highway and into the underbrush of the jungle
that fringes it.
Fortunately, I passed between the boles of trees; had I struck one
of them I should have been badly injured, if not killed, so swiftly
had I been catapulted by that enormous hind leg.
Dazed though I was, I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to
Woola's assistance, to find his savage antagonist circling ten feet
above the ground, beating madly at the clinging calot with all six
powerful legs.
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