There was a splintering sound. Wichter and Joyce dropped their guns to cling more tightly to the bole of the drooping branch that was their only security. The guns glanced off the mountainous body--and, with a last convulsion of the mighty legs, were swept underneath! The monster was still at last, its insensate jaws yet gripping the bough. The two men looked at each other in speechless consternation. The shell a mile off through the dreadful jungle.... Themselves, helpless without their guns.... "Well," said Joyce at last. "I guess we'd better be on our way. Waiting here, thinking it over, won't help any. Lucky there's no night, for a couple of weeks at least, to come stealing down on us." * * * * * He started down the great trunk, with Wichter following close behind. Walking as rapidly as they could, they hurried back along the tunneled trail toward their shell. They hadn't covered a hundred yards when they heard a mighty crashing of underbrush behind them. Glancing back, they saw tooth-studded jaws gaping cavernously at the end of a thirty-foot neck--little, dead-looking eyes glaring at them--a hundred-foot body smashing its way over the trap-bushes and through tangles of vines and down-drooping branches. "The mate to the thing we killed back there!" Joyce panted. "Run, for God's sake!" Wichter needed no urging. He hadn't an ounce of fear in his spare, small body. But he had an overwhelming desire to get back to Earth and deliver his message. He was trembling as he raced after Joyce, thirty feet to a bound, ducking his head to avoid hitting the thick lavender foliage that roofed the trail. "One of us must get through!" he panted over and over. "One of us must make it!" It was speedily apparent that they could never outrun their pursuer. The reaching jaws were only a few yards behind them now. "You go," called Joyce, sobbing for breath. He slowed his pace deliberately. "No--you--" Wichter slowed too. In a frenzy, Joyce shoved him along the trail. "I tell you--" He got no further. In front of them, where there had appeared to be solid ground, they suddenly saw a yawning pit. Desperately, they tried to veer aside, but they were too close. Their last long birdlike leap carried them over the edge. They fell, far down, into a deep chasm, splashing into a shallow pool of water. A few clods of earth cascaded after them as the monster above dug its great splay feet into the ground and checked its rush in time to keep from falling after them. Then the top of the pit slowly darkened as a covering of some sort slid across it. They were in a prison as profoundly quiet and utterly black as a tomb. * * * * * "Dorn," shouted Joyce. "Are you all right?" "Yes," came a voice in the near darkness. "And you?" "I'm still in one piece as far as I can feel." There was a splashing noise. He waded toward it and in a moment his outstretched hand touched the professor's shoulder.