And yet it nearly happened.  There was no warning of approach now as the creature passed over the grass.  Suddenly, like a dark, drifting shadow, the huge bulk loomed up once more before me, making for the entrance of the cave.  Again came that paralysis of volition which held my crooked forefinger impotent upon the trigger.  But with a desperate effort I shook it off.  Even as the brushwood rustled, and the monstrous beast blended with the shadow of the Gap, I fired at the retreating form.  In the blaze of the gun I caught a glimpse of a great shaggy mass, something with rough and bristling hair of a withered grey colour, fading away to white in its lower parts, the huge body supported upon short, thick, curving legs.  I had just that glance, and then I heard the rattle of the stones as the creature tore down into its burrow.  In an instant, with a triumphant revulsion of feeling, I had cast my fears to the wind, and uncovering my powerful lantern, with my rifle in my hand, I sprang down from my rock and rushed after the monster down the old Roman shaft.

My splendid lamp cast a brilliant flood of vivid light in front of me, very different from the yellow glimmer which had aided me down the same passage only twelve days before.  As I ran, I saw the great beast lurching along before me, its huge bulk filling up the whole space from wall to wall.  Its hair looked like coarse faded oakum, and hung down in long, dense masses which swayed as it moved.  It was like an enormous unclipped sheep in its fleece, but in size it was far larger than the largest elephant, and its breadth seemed to be nearly as great as its height.  It fills me with amazement now to think that I should have dared to follow such a horror into the bowels of the earth, but when one’s blood is up, and when one’s quarry seems to be flying, the old primeval hunting-spirit awakes and prudence is cast to the wind.  Rifle in hand, I ran at the top of my speed upon the trail of the monster.

I had seen that the creature was swift.  Now I was to find out to my cost that it was also very cunning.  I had imagined that it was in panic flight, and that I had only to pursue it.  The idea that it might turn upon me never entered my excited brain.  I have already explained that the passage down which I was racing opened into a great central cave.  Into this I rushed, fearful lest I should lose all trace of the beast.  But he had turned upon his own traces, and in a moment we were face to face.

That picture, seen in the brilliant white light of the lantern, is etched for ever upon my brain.  He had reared up on his hind legs as a bear would do, and stood above me, enormous, menacing—­ such a creature as no nightmare had ever brought to my imagination.  I have said that he reared like a bear, and there was something bear-like—­if one could conceive a bear which was ten-fold the bulk of any bear seen upon earth—­in his whole pose and attitude, in his great crooked forelegs with