The event showed that his surmise was correct, for soon after he had spoken the dragon uttered a startling cry—­a kind of squawk like that of a drake, but much louder, hoarser, shriller—­and alighted on the ground.

“There is not a moment to lose,” said Gazen.  “We must attack him before he enters the cave.”

Certainly the darkness inside the cavern would give the beast a great advantage, and although we might succeed in killing him, we could scarcely hope to find Miss Carmichael alive.  Was she alive now?  I had my doubts, but I kept them to myself.  Since she had been carried away she had not given the smallest sign of life, not even when the dragon settled.  Perhaps, however, she had merely lost her senses through fright, and was still in a dead faint.

We might have fought the creature from the air, but we had decided to assail him on the solid ground, because we should thus be able to scatter and take him in the flank, if not in the rear.

While Carmichael landed his car the astronomer and I kept a sharp watch on the beast, all ready to fire at the first movement which seemed to threaten the safety of the young girl, who was lying motionless at the bottom of a slope or talus which led up to the mouth of the cavern.  Freed from his burden the dragon now stood erect, and a more awful monster it would be difficult to conceive.  He must have been at least forty feet in stature, yet he gave us an impression of squat and sturdy strength.

I have called him a dragon, but he was not at all like the dragons of our imagination.  With his great bullet head and prick ears, his beetling brows and deep sunken eyes, his ferocious mouth and protruding tusks, his short thick neck and massive shoulders, his large, gawky, and misshapen trunk, coated with dingy brown fur, shading into dirty yellow on the stomach, his stout, bandy legs armed with curving talons, and his huge leathern wings hanging in loose folds about him, he looked more like an imp of Satan than a dragon.

Hitherto he had not appeared to notice his pursuers; but now that he was freer to observe, the grating of the car upon the rocks caught his attention.  He turned quickly, and stared at the apparition of the vessel, which must have been a strange object to him; but he did not seem to take alarm.  It was the gaze of a jaguar or a tiger who sees something curious in the jungle—­vigilant and deadly if you like, but neither scared nor fierce.

We lost no time in sallying forth, all three of us, armed with magazine rifle, cutlass, and revolver.  Mr. Carmichael in the middle, I on the lower, and Gazen on the upper side, or that nearest to Miss Carmichael.  The rocks around were slippery with ordure, and the sickening stench of rotting skeletons made our very gorge rise.  Suddenly a loud squeaking in the direction of the cave arrested us, and before we had recovered from our surprise, nearly a dozen young dragons, each about the size of a man, tumbled hastily down the slope, and rushed upon the lifeless form of Miss Carmichael.