Suddenly an excited cry burst from his lips, and his friends, fearing that some accident had befallen him, hurried in the direction of the sound. They found him standing upon the crest of a rocky ridge, which broke away sharply upon the other side, descending precipitously into a small valley, the sides of which were fairly ablaze with a mass of trailing fungi, somewhat after the habit of ivy in growth. “What is it?” they asked as they joined him. “Sh!” was the whispered warning. “Look there!” Then they saw. In the midst of the fairy-like glade, with its mighty sides rising and falling by its heavy breathing as it slept, lay a monstrous animal. The glowing light of the fungi revealed with startling distinctness the huge bulk of its body and the great, rhinoceros-like head, which, armed with three fearful horns, was further protected by a ridge of bony plates about the base of the skull. It needed nought else to enable the explorers to identify the creature. “Triceratops!” gasped Garth and the baronet in a breath. “Triceratops!” repeated Mervyn triumphantly; “one of the first inhabitants of the globe! It seems too good to be true. That it has been permitted for us to discover the monster here, in these wilds, when the whole species was thought to be extinct eras ago, is a slice of luck which we cannot too highly appreciate.” “What a monstrous brute!” Seymour exclaimed. “Of course, I have often read of the creature, but never, in the wildest stretch of my imagination, did I dream of a monster so vast. Why, the brute must be thirty-five feet long if it’s an inch!” “And look at the armour plates along its back,” Garth added; “nothing less than a six-inch shell would penetrate that hide!” The professor, note-book in hand, was busily scribbling down a description of the monster. “Total length,” he murmured as he wrote, “thirty-five feet. I think that is what you said, Seymour?” “About that,” replied the baronet. “Length of skull, eight feet,” Mervyn went on, standing perilously close to the edge of the ridge, and leaning far over in his eagerness to obtain a good view of the Triceratops. “Take care!” Seymour cried sharply, “or you’ll fall.” Scarcely had he spoken when the catastrophe he feared happened. The treacherous ground crumbled beneath the scientist’s feet, and, amid an avalanche of loose stones and _debris,_ he pitched headlong into the glade. But for a fortunate chance he would assuredly have broken his neck in the fall. Instead of striking the solid ground below, Mervyn landed with a thud upon the back of the sleeping monster. The shock awoke the creature, and, with a hoarse snort of rage, it rose to its feet, shaking itself furiously to dislodge its unnatural burden. Terrible enough it had looked as it lay asleep, but now, in its rage, its appearance was enough to daunt the boldest.