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Chapter 3

The report of a gun blasted the silence of a dead Devonport with startling

abruptness.

It came from the direction of the launch, and in an instant we three were running

for the boat as fast as our legs would carry us. As we came in sight of it we saw

Delcarte a hundred yards inland from the launch, leaning over something which

lay upon the ground. As we called to him he waved his cap, and stooping, lifted a

small deer for our inspection.

I was about to congratulate him on his trophy when we were startled by a horrid,

half-human, half-bestial scream a little ahead and to the right of us. It seemed to

come from a clump of rank and tangled bush not far from where Delcarte stood.

It was a horrid, fearsome sound, the like of which never had fallen upon my ears

before.

We looked in the direction from which it came. The smile had died from

Delcarte's lips. Even at the distance we were from him I saw his face go suddenly

white, and he quickly threw his rifle to his shoulder. At the same moment the

thing that had given tongue to the cry moved from the concealing brushwood far

enough for us, too, to see it.

Both Taylor and Snider gave little gasps of astonishment and dismay.

What is it, sir?" asked the latter.

The creature stood about the height of a tall man's waist, and was long and gaunt

and sinuous, with a tawny coat striped with black, and with white throat and

belly. In conformation it was similar to a cat--a huge cat, exaggerated colossal

cat, with fiendish eyes and the most devilish cast of countenance, as it wrinkled

its bristling snout and bared its great yellow fangs.

It was pacing, or rather, slinking, straight for Delcarte, who had now leveled his

rifle upon it.

What is it, sir?" mumbled Snider again, and then a half-forgotten picture from an

old natural history sprang to my mind, and I recognized in the frightful beast the

Felis tigris of ancient Asia, specimens of which had, in former centuries, been

exhibited in the Western Hemisphere.

Snider and Taylor were armed with rifles and revolvers, while I carried only a

revolver. Seizing Snider's rifle from his trembling hands, I called to Taylor to

follow me, and together we ran forward, shouting, to attract the beast's attention

The Lost Continent