Perhaps Alan felt what once was called a hunch, a premonition, the
presage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than we
realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. The
tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred
feet away. It was a ten-foot, yawning hole in the cliff. Perhaps Alan
sensed a movement in there. As I turned to look at it a great, hairy
human arm came out of the opening! Then a shoulder! A head!
The giant figure of a man came squeezing through the hole on his hands
and knees! He gathered himself, and as he stood erect, I saw that he was
growing in size! Already he was twenty feet tall compared to us--a
thick-set fellow, dressed in leather garments, his legs and arms heavily
matted with black hair. He stood swaying, gazing around him. I stared up
at his round bullet head, his villainous face.
He saw us! Stupid amazement struck him, then comprehension.
He let out a roar and came at us!
CHAPTER V
Glora shouted, "Into the tunnel! This way!" She held her wits and darted
to one side, with Alan and me after her. We ran through a narrow passage
between two fifty-foot boulders which lay close together. Momentarily
the giant was out of sight, but we could hear his heavy tread and
panting breath. We emerged having passed him. He was taller now. He
seemed confused at our sudden scampering activity. He checked his
forward rush, and ran around the twin boulders. But we had squeezed into
a narrow ravine. He could not follow. He threw a rock. To us it was a
boulder. It crashed behind us. To him, we were like scampering insects;
he could not tell which way we were about to dart.
Alan panted, "Glora, does this lead out?"
The little ravine seemed to open fifty feet ahead of us. Alan stopped,
seized a chunk of rock, flung it up. I saw the giant's face above us. He
was kneeling to reach in. The rock hit him on the forehead--a pebble,
but it stung him. His face rose away.
Again we emerged. The tunnel-mouth was near us. We reached it and flung
ourselves into its ten-foot width just as the giant came lunging up. He
was far larger than before. Looking back, I could see only the lower
part of his legs blocked against the outer light.
"Glora! Alan, where are you?"
For a moment I did not see them. It was darker in this tunnel of broken
rocky walls, and jagged arching roof than outside.
Then I heard Alan's voice: "George! Over here!"
They came running to me. For a moment we stood, undecided. My eyes were
becoming accustomed to the gloom. The tunnel was illumined by a dim
phosphorescence from the rocks. I saw Alan fumbling for his vials, but
Glora stopped him.
"No. We are the right size."
We were about a hundred feet back from the opening. The giant's legs
disappeared. But in a moment the round, light hole of the exit was
obscured again. His head and shoulders! He was lying prone. His great
arms came in. He hitched forward. The width of his expanding shoulders
wedged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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