Presently I saw something looming ahead of me and quickened my pace, only to recoil.

For there, not thirty feet away and perhaps three hundred yards from the mouth of the cave, suddenly appeared what looked like a gigantic man.

Tommy saw it also and barked as dogs do when they are frightened, and the sound of his yaps echoed endlessly from every quarter, which scared him to silence.

Recovering myself I went forward, for now I guessed the truth.
It was not a man but a statue.
The thing stood upon a huge base which lessened by successive steps, eight of them, I think, to its summit.

The foot of this base may have been a square of fifty feet or rather more; the real support or pedestal of the statue, however, was only a square of about six feet.