The next instant we were frozen in our tracks! For a
moment my heart stopped beating.
Standing on the steps, just below the level of the ground, and intently
watching us, with eyes as big and luminous as moons, was a creature
shaped like a man, but more savage than a gorilla!
CHAPTER IV
THE CAVERNS OF VENUS
For two or three minutes the creature continued to stare at us,
motionless; and we stared at him. It was so dramatic that it makes my
nerves tingle now when I think of it. His eyes alone were enough to
harrow up your soul. Huge beyond belief, round and luminous as full
moons, they were filled with the phosphorescent greenish-yellow glare
that sometimes appears in the expanded pupils of a cat or a wild beast.
The great hairy head was black, but the stocky body was as white as a
polar bear. The arms were apelike and very long and muscular, and the
entire aspect of the creature betokened immense strength and activity.
Edmund was the first to recover from the stupor of surprise, and
instantly he did a thing so apparently absurd but so marvelous in its
calculated effect that no brain but his could have conceived it.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63