THE DUNE MONSTER 37 



Like a crouching spider or a half-huddled 

 cuttle-fish the monstrosity sprawled, — its 

 talon-tentacles seeming to gather in the plains 

 — to infest them like a malignant cancer. 



The character of the country we were 

 traversing had changed; again the ground 

 was hard beneath our feet; angular fragments 

 of limestone were strewn over its surface. It 

 was as though the dune-devil had collected and 

 assimilated the surface sand so that its loathly 

 limbs might develop. Inexpressibly sinister 

 was this creature, — this mysterious, insatiable 

 intruder from the desolate northern wastes. It 

 seemed to be endowed with some low-graded 

 form of rudimentary life ; otherwise it was hard 

 to account for the definite and arbitrary varia- 

 tions in the scheme of its southward advance. 

 For the tentacles did not all extend in the same 

 direction ; occasionally one curved in its course 

 and developed against the prevailing wind. 

 The dune-monster was the slow-pacing steed 

 of the Thirst King; it was his throne, his host 

 and his strong city; it was the abhorrent body 

 of which he was the resistless and implacable 

 soul ! 



Our camping-place lay within the curve of 

 one of the tentacles; it was expedient from 

 the stand-point of the hunter to have the 



