They were so dreadfully courageous and intelligent, and they looked as if they _understood_.

The whole scene might have furnished material for another canto of Dante's 'Inferno', as Curtis said.
'I say, you fellows, let's get out of this or we shall all go off our heads,' sung out Good; and we were not slow to take the hint.

Pushing the canoe, around which the animals were now crawling by hundreds and making vain attempts to climb, off the rocks, we bundled into it and got out into mid-stream, leaving behind us the fragments of our meal and the screaming, foaming, stinking mass of monsters in full possession of the ground.
'Those are the devils of the place,' said Umslopogaas with the air of one who has solved a problem, and upon my word I felt almost inclined to agree with him.
Umslopogaas' remarks were like his axe -- very much to the point.
'What's to be done next ?' said Sir Henry blankly.
'Drift, I suppose,' I answered, and we drifted accordingly.
All the afternoon and well into the evening we floated on in the gloom beneath the far-off line of blue sky, scarcely knowing when day ended and night began, for down in that vast gulf the difference was not marked, till at length Good pointed out a star hanging right above us, which, having nothing better to do, we observed with great interest.

Suddenly it vanished, the darkness became intense, and a familiar murmuring sound filled the air.

'Underground again,' I said with a groan, holding up the lamp.