For a moment I wondered where I could have seen that ungainly shape, that arched back with triangular fringes along it, that strange bird-like head held close to the ground.  Then it came back, to me.  It was the stegosaurus—­the very creature which Maple White had preserved in his sketch-book, and which had been the first object which arrested the attention of Challenger!  There he was—­perhaps the very specimen which the American artist had encountered.  The ground shook beneath his tremendous weight, and his gulpings of water resounded through the still night.  For five minutes he was so close to my rock that by stretching out my hand I could have touched the hideous waving hackles upon his back.  Then he lumbered away and was lost among the boulders.

Looking at my watch, I saw that it was half-past two o’clock, and high time, therefore, that I started upon my homeward journey.  There was no difficulty about the direction in which I should return for all along I had kept the little brook upon my left, and it opened into the central lake within a stone’s-throw of the boulder upon which I had been lying.  I set off, therefore, in high spirits, for I felt that I had done good work and was bringing back a fine budget of news for my companions.  Foremost of all, of course, were the sight of the fiery caves and the certainty that some troglodytic race inhabited them.  But besides that I could speak from experience of the central lake.  I could testify that it was full of strange creatures, and I had seen several land forms of primeval life which we had not before encountered.  I reflected as I walked that few men in the world could have spent a stranger night or added more to human knowledge in the course of it.

I was plodding up the slope, turning these thoughts over in my mind, and had reached a point which may have been half-way to home, when my mind was brought back to my own position by a strange noise behind me.  It was something between a snore and a growl, low, deep, and exceedingly menacing.  Some strange creature was evidently near me, but nothing could be seen, so I hastened more rapidly upon my way.  I had traversed half a mile or so when suddenly the sound was repeated, still behind me, but louder and more menacing than before.  My heart stood still within me as it flashed across me that the beast, whatever it was, must surely be after me.  My skin grew cold and my hair rose at the thought.  That these monsters should tear each other to pieces was a part of the strange struggle for existence, but that they should turn upon modern man, that they should deliberately track and hunt down the predominant human, was a staggering and fearsome thought.  I remembered again the blood-beslobbered face which we had seen in the glare of Lord John’s torch, like some horrible vision from the deepest circle of Dante’s hell.  With my knees shaking beneath me, I stood and glared with starting eyes down the moonlit path which lay behind me.  All was quiet as in a dream landscape.  Silver clearings and the black patches of the bushes—­nothing else could I see.  Then from out of the silence, imminent and threatening, there came once more that low, throaty croaking, far louder and closer than before.  There could no longer be a doubt.  Something was on my trail, and was closing in upon me every minute.