Half way up they halted, though not to take breath. Strong-limbed,
long-winded lads like them, who could have swarmed in two minutes to the
main truck of a man-o'-war, needed no such indulgence as that. Instead
of one hundred feet of sloping sand, any one of them could have scaled
Snowdon without stopping to look back.
Their halt had been made from a different motive. It was sudden and
simultaneous, all three having stopped at the same time, and without any
previous interchange of speech. The same cause had brought them to that
abrupt cessation in their climbing; and as they stood side by side,
aligned upon one another, the eyes of all three were turned on the same
object.
It was an animal, a quadruped. It could not be anything else if
belonging to a sublunary world; and to this it appeared to belong. A
strange creature notwithstanding; and one which none of the three
remembered to have met before. The remembrance of something like it
flitted across their brains, seen upon the shelves of a museum, but not
enough of resemblance to give a clue for its identification.
The quadruped in question was not bigger than a "San Bernard," a
"Newfoundland", or a mastiff; but seen as it was, it loomed larger than
any of the three. Like these creatures, it was canine in shape, lupine
we should rather say, but of an exceedingly grotesque and ungainly
figure. A huge square head seemed set without neck upon its shoulders;
while its fore limbs, out of all proportion longer than the hind ones,
gave to the spinal column a sharp downward slant towards the tail. The
latter appendage, short and "bunchy", ended abruptly, as if either cut
off or "driven in"--adding to the uncouth appearance of the animal. A
stiff hedge of hard bristles upon the back continued its _chevaux de
frise_ along the short thick neck, till it ended between two erect
tufted ears. Such was the shape of the beast that had suddenly
presented itself to the eyes of our adventurers.
They had a good opportunity of observing its outlines. It was on the
ridge towards the crest of which they were advancing. The moon was
shining beyond. Every turn of its head or body, every motion made by
its limbs, was conspicuously revealed against the luminous background of
the sky.
It was neither standing nor at rest in any way. Head, limbs, and body
were all in motion, constantly changing, not only their relative
attitudes to one another, but their absolute situation in regard to
surrounding objects.
And yet the change was anything but arbitrary. The relative movements
made by the members of the animal's body, as well as the absolute
alterations of position, were all in obedience to strictly natural laws,
all repetitions of the same manoeuvre, worked with a monotony that
seemed mechanical.
The creature was pacing to and fro, like a well-trained sentry, its
"round" being the curved crest of the sand-ridge, from which it did not
deviate to the licence of an inch. Backward and forward did it traverse
the saddle in a longitudinal direction--now poised upon the pommel, now
sinking downward into the seat, and then rising to the level of the
group, now turning in the opposite direction, and retracing in long
uncouth strides the path over which it appeared to have been passing
since the earliest hour of its existence!
Independent of the surprise which the presence of this animal had
created, there was something in its aspect calculated to cause terror.
Perhaps, had the mids known what kind of creature it was, or been in any
way apprised of its real character, they would have paid less regard to
its presence. Certainly not so much as they did: for instead of
advancing upon it, and making their way over the crest of the ridge,
they stopped in their track, and held a whispered consultation as to
what they should do.
It is not to be denied that the barrier before them presented a
formidable appearance. A brute, it appeared as big as a bull, for
magnified by the moonlight, and perhaps a little by the fears of those
who looked upon it, the quadruped was quite quadrupled in size.
Disputing their passage too; for its movements made it manifest that
such was its design. Backwards and forwards, up and down that curving
crest did it glide, with a nervous quickness that hindered any hope of
being able to rush past it, either before or behind, its own crest all
the while erected, like that of the dragon subdued by Saint George.
With all his English pluck, even stimulated by this resemblance to the
national knight, Harry Blount felt shy to approach that creature that
challenged the passage of himself and his companions.
Had there been no danger _en arriere_, perhaps our adventurers would
have turned back into the valley, and left the ugly quadruped master of
the pass.
As it was, a different resolve was arrived at, necessity being the
dictator.
The three midshipmen, drawing their dirks, advanced, in line of battle,
up the slope. The devil himself could scarce withstand such an assault.
England, Scotland, Ireland, abreast, _tres juncti in uno_, united in
thought, aim and action, was there aught upon earth, biped, quadruped,
or _mille-pied_, that must not yield to the charge?
If there was, it was not that animal oscillating along the saddle of
sand, progressing from pommel to cantel, like the pendulum of a clock.
Whether natural or supernatural, long before our adventurers got near
enough to decide, the creature, to use a phrase of very modern mention,
"skedaddled", leaving them free, so far as it was concerned, to continue
their retreat unmolested.
It did not depart, however, until after delivering a salute, that left
our adventurers in greater doubt than ever of its true character. They
had been debating among themselves whether it was a thing of the earth,
of time, or something that belonged to eternity. They had seen it under
a fair light, and could not decide. But now that they had heard it, had
listened to a strain of loud cachinnation, scarce mocking the laughter
of the maniac, there was no escaping from the conclusion that what they
had seen was either Satan himself, or one of his Ethiopian satellites.