FEARFUL ANTICIPATION. 269 



again erected itself into that appalling attitude of prayer thus 

 watched for a few moments the slow unconscious movements 

 of the glow-worm on the bank ; then sprang upwards and 

 seized in its terrible saw-like arms the yielding body of the lumi- 

 nous beetle. Its phosphorescent light nickered disappeared 

 again shone with dimmed and scattered radiance, then was 

 utterly extinguished, as the enormous living lamp was tossed 

 and turned, and finally crushed in the grasp of its destroyer. 



Then it seemed to us as if the last light of the devastated 

 earth had expired with the life of its harmless bearer, and that 

 we, in a world of darkness and destruction, were left alone 

 with one devouring hideous monster. We could hear nothing 

 but the "champ, champ r of its ravening jaws, and the 

 clashing movements of its rigid limbs, as it now and then 

 turned its prey for the more convenient discussion of its 

 loathsome meal. 



The dews of that summer night were lighter than the drops 

 which fell from our reeking forehead, and our trembling arms 

 could scarcely retain their grasp of the leafless branches which 

 secured our seat upon the elm. 



The monster's meal was. followed by a dead silence but it 

 was not of long duration ; and then we found him to be again 

 in motion by the renewed sound of his long horny limbs which 

 approached nearer and nearer, as he seemed to draw them after 

 him, in cat-like crawling progress, towards the bottom of our 

 tree. The darkness still hid him from our view ; but to him 



VOL. II. R 



