Madman that I was to linger so long before I fled!  Up to then he had hunted by scent, and his movement was slow.  But he had actually seen me as I started to run.  From then onwards he had hunted by sight, for the path showed him where I had gone.  Now, as he came round the curve, he was springing in great bounds.  The moonlight shone upon his huge projecting eyes, the row of enormous teeth in his open mouth, and the gleaming fringe of claws upon his short, powerful forearms.  With a scream of terror I turned and rushed wildly down the path.  Behind me the thick, gasping breathing of the creature sounded louder and louder.  His heavy footfall was beside me.  Every instant I expected to feel his grip upon my back.  And then suddenly there came a crash—­I was falling through space, and everything beyond was darkness and rest.

As I emerged from my unconsciousness—­which could not, I think, have lasted more than a few minutes—­I was aware of a most dreadful and penetrating smell.  Putting out my hand in the darkness I came upon something which felt like a huge lump of meat, while my other hand closed upon a large bone.  Up above me there was a circle of starlit sky, which showed me that I was lying at the bottom of a deep pit.  Slowly I staggered to my feet and felt myself all over.  I was stiff and sore from head to foot, but there was no limb which would not move, no joint which would not bend.  As the circumstances of my fall came back into my confused brain, I looked up in terror, expecting to see that dreadful head silhouetted against the paling sky.  There was no sign of the monster, however, nor could I hear any sound from above.  I began to walk slowly round, therefore, feeling in every direction to find out what this strange place could be into which I had been so opportunely precipitated.

It was, as I have said, a pit, with sharply-sloping walls and a level bottom about twenty feet across.  This bottom was littered with great gobbets of flesh, most of which was in the last state of putridity.  The atmosphere was poisonous and horrible.  After tripping and stumbling over these lumps of decay, I came suddenly against something hard, and I found that an upright post was firmly fixed in the center of the hollow.  It was so high that I could not reach the top of it with my hand, and it appeared to be covered with grease.

Suddenly I remembered that I had a tin box of wax-vestas in my pocket.  Striking one of them, I was able at last to form some opinion of this place into which I had fallen.  There could be no question as to its nature.  It was a trap—­made by the hand of man.  The post in the center, some nine feet long, was sharpened at the upper end, and was black with the stale blood of the creatures who had been impaled upon it.  The remains scattered about were fragments of the victims, which had been cut away in order to clear the stake for the next who might blunder in.  I remembered that Challenger